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SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT. 



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ON 



FOOD AND ITS DIGESTION. 



LONDON 
PRINTED BY STOTTISWOODE ANI> 
NEW-STEEBT SQUARE 



i H O 



ON 



FOOD AND ITS DIGESTION: 



AN INTRODUCTION TO 



DIETETICS. 



BY 



WILLIAM BRINTON, M.D. 

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS : 

imitsician to rr. tdomii'i hospital, and lecturer on phtsiolocv in that institution. 



WITH FORTY-EIGHT ENGRAVINGS OX WOOD. /#% 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS. 

1861. 

c 



,\j 



*v 



* 



PREFACE. 



The following Treatise is intended to describe the process 
of Digestion, in its natural connection with the Food on 

which it operates, and with the purpose which that Food, 
; ius elaborated, fulfils. 

In so far as it answers to this intention, it differs from 
of the works on Diet hitherto published. It gives a 
e complel unt of tl s tns of Digestion, 

&s both their structure and function. It illustrates 
the relation of Digestion to Nutrition, by referring the 
details of the demand for food to those of that process of 
bodily waste by which this demand is dictated. Endea- 
vouring specially to harmonise the study of Food with 
that of Digestion, it everywhere keeps the Natural History 
of the various alimentary substances in clue subordination 
to their practical bearing on life and health. Hence, 
while chiefly discussing the articles of food commonly 
used in this country, it views these from a rational rather 
than an empirical aspect : in order to seek out the phy- 

A 3 



vi PREFACE. 

siological principles of their use, bo far as these are 
cernihle by the light of our existing knowledge. In b! 
it treats the whole subject of Digestion as a natural sub- 
division of the "Institutes of Medicine:" and especially 
dwells on the Physiology of Food, as constituting a I 
for the Practice of Physic, in reference both to the 
vention, and to the cure, of Diseasa 

Such a plan is so closely akin to that adopted bj 
the Course of Physiology at St. Thomas's Hospital, tl I 1 
make no excuses for reproducing in thi- 
materials already included in my Lectures on Digest 
and published as part of the arth In- 

testine," in the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physi 

As little am I disposed to apologise Eot I 
not only the matter, but tin' manner, of the Lectin 
An author will scarcely handle hi- Bubjed aright, 
he have some definite idea of the readers whom h 
addressing. And even where I have most di 
the Course of Lectures above alluded to, I have at 
imagined myself speaking to an audience like that which 
it has for many years been my duty to address on the 
same subject. If, in uttering the ph 
which I have formed, the desire to suggest, to illi 
and even (so for as is fitting) to interest and amufl . 
led me beyond the conventional boundaries of scientific 
authorcraft, the reader will perhaps recollect that 1 1 
specially addressed myself to students : who. as 



PREFACE. Vll 

are generally glad to receive any illustrations which may 
help to clear up the obscurities of a subject ; and appear 
to reserve all their intolerance for pedantry and cant. 

Indeed, save as a Lecturer addressing an audience of 
students, whose specific requirements dictate and limit his 
duties, I could scarcely have written the following pages 
at all. The vast field for successful research offered by 
structural Disease, and the special responsibilities, as to 
the cultivation of Pathology, which every Hospital Phy- 
sician by implication undertakes, would of themselves have 
sufficed to prohibit my entering on the merely curious or 
literary aspects of the subject of Food. And increasing 
professional avocations have so trenched upon the scanty 
leisure at my disposal before beginning this book, that, 
however restricted its plan, nothing short of the engage- 
ments I had entered into could have induced me to finish it. 

The delays incident to the paramount claims of practice 
have not, I trust, prevented my giving a conscientious 
revision to the whole subject ; and especially to some Die- 
tetic questions attracting great interest in the present day. 
Violent as is the controversy which these questions seem 
generally to provoke, it would perhaps be presumptuous 
in me to aspire to the honour of a condemnation by those 
holding extreme opinions on both sides. But, failing to 
obtain this typical success, I shall still hope to have been 
useful ; both by suggesting some truths for further consi- 
deration, and by pointing out some plausible errors, the 
exposure of which may tend to advance our knowledge. 



viil PREFACE. 

In accordance with a plan adopted in my Lecture 
of my estimates of chemical composition are averages from 
several of the best analyses, the sources of which are 
noticed. A similar statement will apply to the other 
estimates here and there introduced. The calculati 
necessary for all have been carefully made and repeated- 
It is hoped that this procedure, — which, though it addfl 
to the labour and responsibilities of the teacher* afford 
the learner, results instead of processes ; selections 
of hap-hazard quotations ; and a general view, ingfo 
number of casual or conflicting detail-, — will be found as 
convenient to the reader, as it certainly seems to 1 
student in the Lecture-room. 

The subjects of VOMITING and of T >u:ta i 3 
been considered in an Appendix: as being collal 
the main purpose of the book. 

WILLIAM BBINT « 

20, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square : 
May 8, 1861. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Tin: MEED OF FOOD. — BODILY WASTE. 

0, physical and vital. — Idea of Nutrition. — Channels of Waste. — 
Chief Constituents of V Carbonic Acid, Water, Urea 

and it- Congeners, Salts, &c — S - t these Constituents respec- 
tively. — Numerical Summary.— Halations of Food and Waste to the 
Blood as well as to the Tissues. — Period of total Waste or Renovation 
of the Body. — Hybernation and Starvation as illustrating these State- 
ment- ....... Page 1 

(HAP. II. 

Tin: NATURE OF food. — alimentary CONSTITUENTS. 

Definition of P 1. — Distinction from Drink. — Relation to other Ingeata. 

— Nature of Food. — Its Organic Source. — Hence Contrast and Rela- 
tions of the Animal and the Plant. — Cliemi.-al Relations of Food to the 
Body. —Its Variety essential — ZNIilk as a Model Food. — Constituents 
of Food. — Protein-compounds. — Fats, or Hydro-carbons. — Sugar and 
Starch, or Hydrates of Carbon. — Water. — Salts . . .39 



chap. in. 

DIGESTION. ITS FIRST STAGE. 

Definition and Summary of the Process. — Mastication. — Insalivation. — 
Salivary Glands. — Their Structure. — Secretion. — Physical and Che- 



; CONTESTS. 

mical Properties of Saliva. — Its Quantity. — Stimuli Flo v.-. — 

Its Action; mechanical, general, and special Functions. — Influx, 
various Sources, — Eelation to the Stomach an<i ":<:.. — 1> _ 

tition : in the Pharynx — in the (Esophagus — at the Cardia 



CHAP. IV. 

DIGESTION. THE STOMACH. 

The Stomach. — Its Shape, Size, Attachment, Situation. — It- Straetm — 

Serous Coat. — Muscular Coat. — M f this C 

Gastric Contents. — Pyloric Valv ■. — I — 

ticular Glands. — Matrix. — Ai S. — 

Lymphatics. — Digest i \ < * 

perties. — Chemical Proper! 

« — Action of Gastric Juice. — Pi 

Gastric Digestion . . . .88 

chap. v. 

DIGESTION. THE SMALL lNIT>Ti: 

The Intestine. — Small Intestine. — Duodenum: its thn i — 

Mesentery. — Convolutions. — Jejunum. — Ileum. — Muscular C it — 
Its Movements; as deduced, observed. — Tin j. — 

Mucous Membrane. — Vo.lvuhe Connivente*. — Tul 60, — 1 1 • ii 3 
or "Intestinal Juice." — Villi. — Their Constituents, including 
teals. — Their Changes during Digestion. — Absorption oi Fat — I 
cles; Agminate, Solitary. — Racemose Glands. — A - — 

Pancreas. — Its Structure. — Secretion or Pancreatic Jui — 
sical, Chemical, Properties. — Its Share in Digestion; or A ' 
Starch, (2) Fat, (3) Protein-compounds. — Liver. — It- Supplj 
— Its Physical Characters. — Its Structure ; Capsule, V — Is, i '..- 
Ducts. — Its two-fold Function. — The Bile. — Its Quant iv. 
flue-need by the Gall-bladder. — Its Composition. — Its two-mid I Bd 
Excretion, Resorption, — Its Influence on Digestion. — 1*- S m ea — 
Influence of the Liver on Digestion. — Contrast of Portal and 
Bloods. — Progress of Digestion in the Small Intestine 



CONTEXTS. XI 

CHAP. VI. 

DIGESTION. THE LARGE INTESTINE. 

Large Intestine ; its Measurements, Divisions. — Caecum ; its Shape, 
Stru c tur e, Openings. — Ileo-caecal Valve. — Vermiform Appendix. — 
Colon; its Form, Structure. — Its movements; observed, deduced. — 
Rectum; its Situation, Shape, Structure. — Its Sphincters. — Its Con- 
tractions; propulsive, expulsive or Defecation. — Its Folds. — Mucous 
Membrane. — Arteries of the Intestinal Canal; Superior, Inferior Me- 
senteric, and their Branches. — Intestinal Veins. — Rationale of the 
Intestinal Vessels* — Nerves of the Intestinal Canal. — Lymphatics. — 
Contents of the Large Intestine: Fsdcal, I -Digestion in this 

lent. — Office of the Cfecom. — Duration of Intestinal Digestion. — 
es. — Their Properties ; Sources. — Mechanical Ingredients. — Che- 
mical Composition. — Intestinal and gastri —Their Composition, 
Nature, and Sources. — Their Relation to Secretion. — Their Absorption. 
— Relation of Digestion to Nutrition. — Intermediate Circulation. — 
Digestion, its Expenditure of Force .... Page 199 

(HAP. VII. 
yai:iktii:s OF food. — animal food. 

; lients of Food. — Animal and Vegetable. — Their Mixture natural for 

Man. — Their Variation contingent — Nutritional Influence of Foods. — 
Contrast of Animal and Vegetable Food. — Varieties of Animal Food. — 
Meal or Flesh. Its Chemical Components. — 1. Fibrin. — 2. Albumen. — 

■ ••latin. — Itl 5 I, — Nutritional Value of it, and of the Collagenic 

Tissues, — -1. I Its Nutritive Value, in 

Animal. Vegetable Food. — [ta Dig< stibility, as affected by its Kind, by 
Climate. — It^ Destiny, when assimilated in Excess. — o. Inorganic Con- 
stituents, contrasted with those of Blood. — 6. Secondary Organic Com- 
pounds. — Other Kinds *»f Animal Food. — Organic Muscle. — Heart. — 
Tongue. — Respiratory, Tendinous, Muscles. — Influence of Diseases, Age, 
Habits of Animal. — Flesh of Birds. — Fish. — Blood. — Brains. — 
Glands. — Bone. — EggS. — Milk. — Variations in different Animals as to 
Quality, Quantity. — Influence of Date of Lactation. — Physical Arrange- 
ment of Milk. — Cream. — Butter. — Its Components. — Its Nutritive 
Value. — Cheese. — Its Composition. — Its Varieties. — Its Nutritive 
Value . . . . . . . .246 



Xll CONTENTS, 

CHAP. VIII. 

VARIETIES OF FOOD. VEGETABLE FOOD. 

Vegetable Food. — Its Characters. — Its importance to "National Life.— 
Value in warm Climates. — Its Variation* by Culta 

Climate, Age. — Cereal and allied Grains ; their VaJ 
their Growth, their Composition. — Pr>\ h A 
their Proteinous Constituent, Husk, Fat. Stare] 
tions in other Characters. — Pro- 
Chemical Changes. — Choice of Breads. — Leguminous Seeds. I mpo- 
sition. — Nutritive Value. — Potatoes. — Thei I ' Nu- 

tritive Value. — Roots and Fruit-. — Their Composition an 
Shoots, Leaves, &c. — Their Con ad Nutritive Prop*-: I 

chap. i\. 

I ONDIM 

Condiments, their Character. — Tl. ine. — 

Salt as illustrating these Relations. [ta 
to Scurvy. — Effed 

Use ; in Man, in Animals. — Acrid or Stunnls I I ts. Their 

with reference to Appetite. Circulation, Secretion.—. S] - — 
as Medicaments. — Complementary Natun 
Alliaceous Condiments. — Their Varietu - 
Condiments. — Oils. — Alkaloids. — C 
or Complementary Foods . . . . .331 

CHAP. X. 

TEA AND OOFFEEi 

Tea and Coffee. — Their Introduction into Europe. — F- suits :' •' 

Use. — Their Contrast and Analogy ■ in Eff tfi 

Its Source. — Its Varieties (Black and Given V - — 

Composition of Tea. and of its Infusion. — Composition of fee, — 

Effect of Boasting. — Proximate Ingredients of its Decoction. — Nut: 
Value of Tea and Cofifee, — Physiological Effects. — Their 
Relation. — Theory of the economizing Action of Tea and Coffee. — 



contexts. xiii 

searches of Boecker and others hereon. — Resemblances, and Contrasts, 
of their Action. — Objections to such Views in general ; to these Experi- 
ments in particular. — Cocoa and its Preparations. — Their Contrast with 
Tea and Coffee. — Their dietetic Value . . . Page 344 



CIIAP. XL 

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

Alcoholic Drinks. — Their Relation to Food. — Their Classes. — Wine. — Its 
Typical Varieties. — Their Composition: as influenced by various Cir- 
cumstances. — Bordeaux and Burgundy. — Sherry, Madeira, Port. — Effer- 
dng Wines. — spirits. — Been or Ales. — Physiological Effects of 
Alcoholic Drinks. — Pathological Effects. — Action of Alcohol on the 
Functions. — On the Metamorphosis of the Body. — Researches of Boecker 
and others. — Objections to their Conclusions ; to their Facts. — Elimina- 
tion of Alcohol. — Its Influence on Vicarious Secretion. — Its Action on 
the Organism. — Its Influence on Bodily Temperature, — On Bodily, 
Mental Exertion. — Its Indirect Value. — Its Reaction, — Its Influence on 
Longevity, in Individual-, Populations. — Teetotalism. — Influence of 
Alcohol on Digestion ; on Ingestion. — Risks of Sudden Abstinence 365 

CIIAP. XII. 

00OKEBT. 

Importance ay. — Comparison of Paw and Cooked Flesh. — Di- 

•ve Import of the Changes wrought by Cookery. — Summary of its 
Advantages. — Process of roasting Meat — Process of boiling Meat. — 
Var; Boiling; their Objects, and Processes. — French Pot-au-feu 

as one of these Varieties. — Baking. — Stewing. — Soups. — Their Ob- 
jects, and corresponding Varieties, — Spanish Puckero. — Cookery of 
Flesh as affected by its Decomposition. — Economy of Cookery . 399 



CIIAP. XIII. 

CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

Diets ; as Mixtures of the preceding Articles of Food. — Difficulties of 
their Calculation. — Value of Physiological Chemistry in the Choice of 
Food. — Absolute Quantity of Food. — Results of Deficiency of Food. — 



XIV CONTEXTS. 

Test of a good Diet. — Uses of its Variety. — Office of Physiology in 

reference to Dietetics. — Chief Circumstances affed —Diet as 

modified by Age ; in Childhood, in Old Age. — Diet as modifii 

— By Habits of Life ; Confinement, Inaction. Mental Exertion. — By 

Climate; in Arctic, Tropical, Regions. — By B ice. — By !•- — 

Diet in Diseases of the Digestive Organs. — In Diseases ol El 

of Repletion. — Repletion; general and easoaL — Repletion from eh> 

Elimination ; from general Congestion. — Relation of Instinct * 

Diet in special Diseases, how appraised, — Fever; — 

Value of Alcohol in Disease. — Clue to it- Ofl 8, I A 

ferable Mode of its Administration. — Principle of the Choice of Food 

and Stimulants in acute Disease 



Appendix A. — Vomiting ..... 
Appendix B. — Dietaries ..... 



LIST OF VOOD-EXGRAVINGS. 



Fig. Page 

1. Conglobate Gland of the Month ; after Koelliker . . 73 

2. Diagram of two Ducts of a Lobule ; after Koelliker . . 74 

3. Two V.-i- roglobate Gland j after Koelliker . . 75 

4. Capillaries of a Lobule ; after Hyde Salter . . .79 

5. Stomach inflated and dissected* to show its deeper Muscular 

Layers ........ 89 

6. Fibre-cells of the Stomach . . . . .95 

7. Section of the Pyloric Valve . . . . .97 

8. Diagram to illustrate Peristalsis in a closed Tube . . 100 

9. Diagram to show the Movement of the Food in the Stomach . 101 

10. Vertical Section of the Stomach* showing its Structure . . 106 

11. Upper part of a Stomach-tube, showing its dimorphous Cell- 

growth ....... 108 

12. Arteries of the Stomach . . . . . .111 

13. Vessels of the Gastric Mucous Membrane, as seen in a vertical 

Section . . . . . . .113 

14. Superficial Capillaries of the Gastric Mucous Membrane . 114 

15. Stomach and Intestinal Canal ..... 133 

16. Bundle of Fibre-cells from the Muscular Coat of the Intestine . 137 

17. Small Intestine prepared to show the Valvules Connivmtes . 144 

18. Intestinal Tubes from the Jejunum .... 146 

19. Superficial Capillaries of the Intestinal Mucous Membrane . 151 

20. Vertical Section of the Jejunum, showing its Structure . . 152 

21. Villus of the Jejunum during fasting . . . .153 

22. Vessels of two Villi, injected ..... 155 

23. Villi of the Calf, showing their Lacteals ; after Koelliker . 157 

24. Villus prepared to show its Muscular Structure ; after Koelliker 158 

25. Villi of the Dog, wrinkled by contraction . . . 161 



XVI 



LIST OF ^VOOD ENGRAVINGS* 



Fig. 

26. Similar Villi, showing the separation of their Epithelium and 

Body . . . 

27. Villus of the Dog, during Digestion 

28. Agminate Follicles ; after Koelliker 

29. Agminate Follicles distended ; after Boehm 

30. Portion of a duster of such Follicles 

31. Section of Intestine showing an Agminate Follicle 

32. Vessels of three Agminate Follicles of the Rabbit ; 

33. Vertical Section of Duodenum, Bhowing aD 

34. Diagram of two Duet- of a Lobule; the 2, . 

35. Relations of the Duodenum and Fane 

36. Under Surface of the Liver .... 

37. Transverse Section of a Portal Canal : after Kieroan 

38. Longitudinal Section of Sublobular Vein ; man 

39. Longitudinal Section of a small Portal Canal: after Kiernau 

40. Portal Venous Plexus; after Kiernau 

41. Network of Hepatic Cells and I 

Koelliker ...... 

42. Commencement of the Interlobular I 

43. Large Entestine 

44. Csecum, prepared to show the arrai 

45. Viscera of the Male Pelvis, showing th< turn 

46. Distribution of the Superior M Lrtery . 

47. Distribution of the Inferior Mesenteric Artery 

48. Branches of the Portal Vein .... 



Page 

162 
164 

107 
168 

170 

177 

183 

M 
185 

187 

188 



ox 
TOOD A^D ITS DIGESTION. 



CHAPTEB I. 

Till; NEED <)F FOOD. — BOJDIL1 WASTE. 

. physical and vital. — Idea of Nutrition. — Channels of Waste. — 

Chief Constituents of Waste, or Egesta: Carbonic Acid, Water, Urea and 

aers, Salts, flee. - Sources of these Constituents respectively. — 

Numerical Summary. — Relation of Food and Waste to the Blood as well 
BS t<» the Tissues. Period of total Waste or Renovation of the Body. — 
Hybernation and Starvation as Qlustrating these Statements. 

Is the animal economy, income is regulated by expendi- 
ture; and the ingestion of food replaces that loss of sub- 
stance which the body is continually undergoing. 

Even the hardest materials of the earth's surface are 
continually experiencing radual disintegration, as a 

result of the various physical processes to which they 
are exposed. Such processes may be instanced in the 
attrition and solution of solids, the evaporation of liquids, 
and the diffusion of gases. And hence, when we turn 
from these inorganic substances to the animal fabric, 
and consider its slight cohesion, the friction which its 
locomotion implies, its large watery constituent, and the 
feeble chemical affinities which enchain its elementary 

B 

'J 



2 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

atoms, we shall scarcely be surprised to find that the 
rapidity of its waste far exceeds that of the inanimate 
solids around us. 

But the rate of waste, and the consequent need 
replacement, both depend far less on simple physical 
causes of this kind, than on certain - which 

specific to the organised body. These actions, which, in 
the aggregate, make up what we term Lin:, do 
much imply, as actually consist in, a perpetual pr< 
flux and metamorphosis, which engages all 
of the body, and conducts their several 
through various successive phases of composition, t<» an 
effete and useless state, in which they arc finally i 
from the organism. 

Hence, whatever the share taken by the physi 
actions of diffusion, solution, friction, and evaporation, 
in the removal of the substance of the body, they 
in any sense the true causes of it- process of \ 
the real sources of its egeata or losses. They are but, 
it were, the janitors ot the animal fortress; the nal 
and amount of the matter- passing oat by those portali 
which they stand being always dictated by the big 
forces of the life that rules within. 

The growth of the young animal proves that its 
on the whole, outweigh its losses. And it is s reversal 
of this disparity which causes the aged animal to dwindle 
and decay towards the close ^ its allotted term of life. 
But in either case, the process o{ nutrition itself is far m 
affected than is the mere quantity of its materials, or of 
its products. Hence, in summing up the chief detaik 



BODILY WASTE. 3 

that waste which forms one extremity of nutritional life, 
with a view to contrasting the indirect information thus 
gained with that more directly derivable from a study of 
food itself, we may conveniently restrict ourselves to that 
ideal or abstract view of nutrition which regards it as 
effecting the mere maintenance of the adult bod}'. And, 
while such a summary cannot well suggest any lively 
or definite ideas of this process without often referring 
to the quantities presumably concerned, these estimates 
must be received with an explicit acknowledgment that 
their inherent inexactness is increased by their ignoring 
many influential circumstances — age, sex, idiosyncrasy — 
without which they are quite inapplicable to the case of 
any individual.* 

The losses, or rrjesta, of the organism leave it by four 
channels. The excrement and the urine respectively con- 
vey away a moist solid mass, and a much greater bulk 
of a liquid containing a large proportion of dissolved 
solids. The skin, besides that gradual loss of substance 
from its surface which, under many circumstances, becomes 
perceptible to the naked eye, insensibly discharges vapours 
which arc easily augmented and aggregated into the 
liquid state of sweat. The lungs likewise discharge 
vapours and gases; of which the former are often seen 
to collect as drops of liquid upon neighbouring objects, 
while the latter may be recognised as carbonic acid and 
ammonia by the application of appropriate tests to the 

* Perhaps we may find the nearest approach to accuracy in supposing 
these estimates to refer to a healthy male, 35 years old, 5| feet high, and 
10 stones in weight. 

B 2 



4 THE XEED OF FOOD. 

air exhaled. Hence, any division of these 
solid, liquid, and gaseous, only regards their balkier 
constituent. As in the division of alimentary su 
into food and drink, all exact boundary fails as. 
feces are not only charged with liquids, hut mechani 
entangle, as well as dissolve, gases in their substance. 
urine, again, contains gases in a state of solution. Tin- 
lungs, beside exhaling volatile liquids, which are capabl 
condensing at a very moderate diminution of the pul- 
monary (105° F.) temperature, giv< I nailer quantities 
of liquids, and even of solids, which are dowb 
by ciliary movements ii]> the bronchial tubes that I 
the channels of exit for their expired tad vapours. 

Lastly, while various casualties may determine tin- \ \ 
or liquid form for the water which is given off bj 
skin, it may be questioned whether it- ammoii . 
acid, and even its fatty acids, _ 1 in 

these volatile or gaseous forms, <>v are thrown out 
the lowermost strata of the cutaneoofl tissues in a liquid 
(perhaps even in a solid) state. 

As the chief constituents of these losses, we maj enun 
rate carbonic acid, water, urea and it- congenero, i: _ 
salts, and sundry organic (and even d substances. 

The carbonic acid riven off from the body daily may 
be estimated at about '2 lbs.; a weight which, at ordin 
pressure and temperature, would correspond t-> a bulk 
about 17 cubic feet. Of this quantity, it IS Me that 

a single ounce, or halt a cubic foot, is all that finds it- \\a\ 
out by the skin: the remainder being exhaled from the 
lungs in the air expired, the carbonic acid of whiei 



BODILY WASTE. 5 

about a hundred-fold more abundant than that of the 
inspiratory air (-04 and 4 per cent, respectively). 

The quantity of water daily set free seems to be about 
6 lbs.* Of this rather less than half appears to be given off 
in the feces and urine (the latter containing about ten times 
as much as the former), and rather more than half by the 
skin and lungs. Of the latter moiety, again, the whole of 
which is often included under the term transpiration, the 
pulmonary share may be regarded as not more than 1 lb.; 
the skin furnishing the remaining 2 — 2\ lbs., usually in 
the form of watery vapour. 

These proportions fluctuate atly, as to require even 

than the usual qualifications of such estimates. The 
watery vapour exhaled may be regarded afl tending to satu- 
rate the inspired air, and therefore as vastly reduced by 
any previous approach to saturation in the surrounding 
atmosphere External warmth and active bodily exertion, 
which greatly t increase the water of the cutaneous secre- 
tion, correspondingly diminish that of the urine, and even 

of tie 

Urea and its congeners are justly regarded with extreme 

interest in respect to the quantitative aspect of nutrition. 
So small an amount of nitrogen is given off by the skin 
and lungs, whether pun- or in combination ( ammonia, 
and even by the intestinal evacuations (barely 3 per 
cent, of the daily loss of azote), that it is by this constituent 

* The weigh tfl mentioned are those most familiar to a medical reader : 
v. pounds avoirdupois; ounces, drachms, and grains of apothec; 
weight. 

t Valentin found the amount thus given off in a certain time to be 
quadrupled by active movemi 

B 3 



6 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

of the urine, which contains nearly 50 per cent, of nitrogen, 

we may best measure both the waste of the azor 

and the quantity of azotised food necessary to replace it. 

About 480 grains, or 1 oz., would seem to be a tolerably 
exact estimate of the urea excreted daily by a healthy male 
adult. Eeducible to scarcely more than half this quantity 
for the female, and a quarter for the child or the aged 
person, and doubled, or halved, by diseases in which b 
waste exceeds (fever) and falls below (chronic heart disease) 
the standard respectively, it is equally amenable to two 
other sources of variation. Of these, one, fht natu- 

rally Be expected, is apparent rather than real, bei 
a diminution in the urea excreted from the body by a dis- 
eased kidney as is partly counterpoised by its alio* 
the quantity retained to accumulate in the poisoned Mood. 
In the other the diminution or incn quantity ifl <ii< - 

tated by the azotised constituent of the food; being 
by a flesh diet, lowered by a vegetable one, and, lastly, 
reduced to a minimum (or dietetic » r») by the with- 
holdance of all azotised food. 

Uric acid and ammonia, occurring in wry small prop 
tion* in healthy urine, may be estimated as together 
amounting to 4 per cent, of the above quantit area 

and of nitrogen. 

The salts set free from the body are far too imperfectly 
known, both as regards their quantity and quality, 
justify any exact quantitative estimate. In respect to the 
skin, the sweat, which is said to contain about one per c 
of fixed ingredients, includes among these much chloride 
* According to Vogel. about 7 and 10 grains per day respe 



BODILY WASTE. 7 

sodium, and further liberates much ammonia in combina- 
tion with hydrochloric and organic acids. Its sebaceous 
secretion seems to be chiefly margarate and oleate of soda 
and ammonia. Its horny epithelial desquamation, which 
contains about one per cent, of inorganic matter, yields 
phosphate (and carbonate?) of lime and magnesia.* And 
even supposing the vaporous or insensible perspiration to 
contain less of saline constituents than the composition of 
the liquid sweat would seem to imply, the total inorganic 
salts of this daily loss must amount to something consider- 
able (50 — 100 grains); while its salts of ammonia pre- 
sumably sot froe. in the liquid or solid form, a much larger 
proportion of this alkali than would be conjectured from 
that quantity of it which can bo detected by the ordinary 
tests fur this volatile alkali in the free state. The excre- 
ment probably dismisses from the body not more than. 
40 or 50 grains of salts daily : in addition to that larger and 
more insoluble saline constituent which it contains in the 
shape of alimentary residue. Phosphates of the earthsand 
alkalies, sulphates, and but little chlorides, are its chief 
components. 

It is in the urine that we find the nearest approach to 
accuracy of estimate, as woll as the largest items of waste, 
in respect to these ingredients of the bodily mass. The 
chief fixed salts of the urine may be regarded as setting 
free from the body daily about 4^ drachms of chloride of 
sodium, 4 of sulphates (chiefly of soda and potash), 2 of 
acid phosphate of soda, and 1 of phosphates of lime and 
magnesia. 

* Anselmino in Tiedemann's Zeitsehrift, b. ii. s. 321 — 342. 
B 4 



8 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

In addition to the preceding ingredients, however, the 
body evidently discharges, by every channel of excretion, 
other substances, only less worthy of notice in the circum- 
stance of their smaller quantity. The albumen, epithelium. 
and fatty matters of the skin ; the bile, mucus, and epithe-* 
Hum discharged from the bowels ; the colouring and other 
extractive matters of the urine: and, lastly, the quasi 
albuminous film thrown down from the breath of anin 
when respiring in a confined space; — all these 
together considerably increase the total of waste, little 
as each may severally add to its amount. 

We may now attempt to trace back these several oon- 
stituents of the daily waste into the body itself. The 
carbonic acid, given off, as we have noticed, from the -kin 
as well as the lungs, is further shown, by both physical and 
chemical examination, to be introduced into the blood in 
the capillaries throughout the whole body, where it marks 
the transition from arterial to venous blood by the stril 
change it impresses on this fluid. It is true that, in the 
rush of blood occasionally Bent to an active gland at the 
period of its intermittent action, this change of colour 
appears to be subordinated and disguised by the vast quan- 
tity of fluid then undergoing a rapid transit, during which 
it yields up certain of its constituents. This very fact, 
however, not only permits, but suggests the statem 
abundantly confirmed by all the other phenomena of tin- 
process — that it is a change, an oxidation, a combus- 
tion of all the bodily tissues which forms the source of 
the animal heat, and pours into the blood that stream 
carbonic acid, afterwards chiefly (but not exclusive 



BODILY WASTE. 9 

removed by physical diffusion in the lungs from the 
organism it would speedily poison by its further accu- 
mulation. 

The water of the egesta is evidently derived in greatest 
part by evaporation and filtration from the large watery 
constituent of the blood, the nutritional fluid, and the 
tissues. But it may be also referred to two other sources. 
Part of it may be regarded as having been formerly present 
in the tissues as water of composition rather than of imbi- 
bition, — in other words, as analogous to the water which 
chemistry teaches us is often united with substances by 
affinities, under whose influence it is completely bereft of 
its ordinary physical characters, to form what are called 
the hydrates of such substances. Perhaps, however, we may 
conjecture that, in the water of the animal body, these, 
the two extremes of its tenacity of union, are filled up by 
various intervals, approximating more or less to both, and 
to each other. Another part of the water set free from 
the system seems to claim a very different origin, — a com- 
bustion, in which hydrogen previously combined with 
carbon is oxidated to form water, here (as in artificial com- 
bustion generally) a twin product with carbonic acid of 
this process. It is true that, in estimating the quantity of 
water thus formed daily, we are exposed to unusual sources 
of error ; especially in the circumstance, that its amount is 
the subtrahend of several doubtful estimates, whose collec- 
tive accuracy alone would guarantee its own correctness. 
But, on the whole, its presumable quantity, about 1*2 lbs. 
daily, will, at any rate, illustrate its probable importance, 
as well as the variations which various circumstances con- 



10 THE XEED OF FOOD. 

nected with the state of the organism and the characters of 
the food can doubtless impress upon it. 

In speaking of the formation of carbonic acid and water 
by the combustion of hydro-carbons in the body, it becomes 
necessary to qualify the sense in which such a phraseology 
can be usefully adopted. The chief fatty constituent* 
the body have a composition which may be generally re- 
garded as answering to the formula C, fl H^O; in other 
words, to what would be a pure hydro-carbon, or combina- 
tion of equivalent proportions of carbon and hydrogen, 
it not that every tenth equivalent of the hydrog 
tuted by one of oxygen. Out of tin* body, all these hydro- 
carbons are easily made to undergo an artificial combus- 
tion, of which the chief products d in the 
shape of carbonic acid and water. Hence, wh find 
that the body of a healthy male adult contains - 
than £th or -J-th of its weight ( = about 32 Lbs.) of adi] 
tissue diffused throughout its mass, and that the 
tained in this tissue is rapidly diminished under 
cumstances which unusually tax the system ; when 
further find that the process of emaciation traced during 
life in the subcutaneous structures can be verified by the 
microscope after death, and, as it were, followed through the 
various stages by which each fat-cell, each aeparaJ 
house, each minute bladder of lard, i> emptied of its 
tents, so as to contain little more than serum, or even bo 
collapse at various points of its surface into an absolute 
contact of its membranous cell-walls, — we cannot hesitate 
to deduce, from the materials and products of combustion, 
and the evolution of heat, the actual occurrence of thifl 






BODILY WASTE, 11 

process ; which, by whatever intermediate stages, evidently 
burns up the fat of the body into carbonic acid and water. 

The large proportion of fatty matter often taken in the 
food, together with the small proportion contained in the 
blood (which the greater part of the fatty aliment enters 
in the form of chyle), suggest that not only is fat slowly 
introduced into the stream of blood, but also that it is either 
rapidly consumed in the blood, or is soon set aside from it 
in the form of adipose tissue. Indeed, it is probable that 
both these alternatives obtain. Fur example, we may 
estimate that the whole mass of the blood contains not 
more than n } t - o th part of all the fat stored up in the aggregate 
adipose tissues of the body. Hence, apart* from the de- 
mands of the nervous tissues, —which, whatever the quan- 
tity of fat they claim, evidently imply such an elaboration 
of this material as is almost a guarantee for that slowness 
of their waste we shall hereafter deduce from other 
phenomena,— we might almost inter that, of the fat largely 
added to the blood by many kinds of food, a certain small 
proportion at once undergoefl combustion in this fluid, 
while all in i of this proportion is stored up as adi- 

pose tissue. Any further excess (which, by the way, would 
often be checked by the inability of the digestive* organs 
to receive it) seems to find an intermediate destiny ; a 
partial combustion in the shape of those oxidised fatty 
acids largely given off from the skin and lungs of certain 
animals, of Man in the Arctic regions, and of dogs when 
fed exclusively on fatty substances, f 

* Compare chap. v. 
f Compare p. 37. 



12 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

But can we refer these products exclusively to such a 
source? Certainly not. For just as the most elementary 
facts of nutrition indicate that all the softer bodily tissue- 
undergo a process of waste, and especially that the mus- 
cular substance is rapidly destroyed and renewed inci- 
dentally to its own contractile function, so a mere* com- 
parison between the composition of the albuminous radicle 
of this tissue, and the urea which chiefly eliminates nitro- 
gen from the body, shows that any process which convert- 
albumen into urea must leave a large surplus of carbon 
and hydrogen, the ultimate destiny of which can only be 
accounted for by supposing their combustion to form part 
of the carbonic acid and water already alluded to. f 

Hence while the urea dismissed from the body must, u 
far as regards its nitrogen, be referred to tissues containing 
this element; and to the various azotised tissues, in pro- 
portion to the rate at which they severally waste whatever 
that rate may be; there is not one of these tissues, bo far 
as their composition is at present known, which does not 
also claim to be considered as a subject of that combustion 
of which carbonic acid and water are the final product-. 

How much, however, of these two products of combus- 
tion must be ascribed to the waste of albuminous tisfi 
and how much remains to be only attributed to that of the 
fatty tissues, cannot at present be decided. Still it may 
be interesting to conjecture an answer from two opp 
data. 

* Protein = (C 36 Ii 25 N 4 lc + 2 HO) = 2Urea {CJIJSfiJ + 8 HO + C M +H, . 
t A statement of which the fact, that exercise can for a time mainl 

the bodily heat against extreme cold, forms an illustration as old as th 
of hunting and of warfare. 



BODILY WASTE. 13 

We may estimate, for instance, that the body of a healthy 
male contains about 40 lbs. of muscular substance, with a 
proportion of 18 per cent, of albumen and syntonin. Of 
this 40 lbs., with its 50,400 grains of protein, about -^-th 
would be lost daily during the process of starvation. These 
840 grains may be corrected, let us suppose, to 900 or so, to 
allow for the waste of other albuminous tissues. But we 
shall find there are reasons for supposing that, of the 480 
grains of urea found by Vogel and Xeubauer to be the daily 
out-going of this compound, about one half (or 240) must 
come directly or indirectly from the food, one half from the 
waste of the tissues. And this 240 grains of urea answers 
to about 800 grains of protein ; the remaining 550 grains 
of which, by combining with 1200 grains of oxygen, would 
furnish 1408 grains of carbonic acid and 342 grains of 
water. Again, the fatty matters of the body may be 
estimated to average about 32 lbs. in the healthy male 
adult, and may be regarded as losing about half a pound 
daily during inanition. In this half-pound, or 3500 grains 
of hydro-carbon, 27oo grains of carbon would combine 
with 7200 grains of oxygen to form 9900 grains of carbonic- 
acid ; and 405 grains of hydrogen would unite with 2880 
grains of oxygen and with the 360 grains originally con- 
tained in the fat to form 3600 grains of water. The 
total quantities of carbonic acid and water of combustion 
derived from both tissues would thus be (1408 -f 9900 =) 
11,308 and (342 + 3600 =) 3942 grains (l|and J-ths lb.) 
respectively ; quantities * which approach those deducible 
from the analyses of these egesta themselves already 
summed up. 

* See pp. 4, 10. 



H 



THE SEED OF FOOD. 



Of that steady, uniform efflux of urea which seems to 
represent the unavoidable waste of the system in the 
animal starved of all food, or of its azotised constituents, 
it is not difficult to conjecture the principal source. The 
muscular movements of that limited degree of locomotion 
inseparable from life; and especially the waste of those 
contractile tissues which, like the heart, the diaphragm, and 
the unstriped fibres of the vessels, of the bowels, and of the 
integuments, are kept in incessant action by the dema 
of the organic (as distinct from the animal) life, — tl 
are doubtless the chief sources of the urea which is dis- 
charged, independently of all reception of nitrogen into 
the body. 

In respect to the process by which una is constructed 
out of the various tissues, there seems little reason to doubt 
the general accuracy of the modern doctrine, that one or 
more of the intermediate stages of this metamorphosis are 
represented by the uric acid, kreatin, kreatinine, and other 
azotised alkaloids discovered by Liebig. And. as regards 
the albuminous compounds, we may find an analogous, i 
identical, stage of their change in some other constituents 
of muscle, which seem to represent the divergence, so to 
speak, of its non-azotised portions towards carbonic acid 
and water. Indeed, in the putrefaction of albumen. 
well as in the diseases of muscle, we meet with phenomena 
which may fairly suggest the conversion of some of its 
constituents into a fatty hydro-carbon as a contingent 
step in this metamorphosis. It may even be suspected. 
from some of the micro-chemical appearances of the 
fresh muscle, that, besides the adipose tissue between and 



BODILY WASTE. 15 

amongst its elementary fibres, its sarcolemma encloses a 
fatty constituent, in quantity almost approaching that of 
the lactic acid and inosite also present here. 

The doubts thrown upon such a doctrine by the facility 
with which most of these supposed intermediate com- 
pounds are thrown out of the blood, unchanged, by the 
kidney, rest on a very slender foundation. Indeed, when 
we consider their variable amounts in different animals, — 
their remarkable variations in accordance with the nature 
and amount of the food, and even exercise, of the healthy 
individual, — and. finally, the ease with which many of the 
least powerful of those artificial reactions which the 
chemist has at his command partially convert them into 
urea and its allied substances, — we shall find it difficult to 
avoid the conclusion that they are really the later stages 
of a serial metamorphosis, the earlier and more indis- 
pensable steps of which are conducted in the blood and 
the tissues, leaving their last and all but perfected pro- 
ducts to be either carried to the full extent of the trans- 
formation into urea, or arrested, as regards a small but 
variable fraction of their total quantity, at some penul- 
timate stage of the corresponding metamorphosis. To 
which particular stage belongs the production of ammonia, — 
whether its production is preparatory to the formation 
of urea, or, in some sense, a protraction (and, as it were, 
supererogation) of the uric conversion of the azotised 
tissues, whose effete and poisonous residue it thus sets 
free in the self-diffusive form of an aeriform fluid, — is a 
question which no mere comparison of equivalents can 
answer, and to which physiology at present gives none but 



16 



THE XEED OF FOOD. 






an equivocal response. In like manner, many of the 
phenomena which accompany the abnormal presence of 
lactic acid, sugar, and oxalic acid in the urine, suggest for 
these non-azotised compounds an explanation, in reference 
to the combustible ingredients of the tissues, in close 
parallelism with the above allusions to the uric and 
hippuric acids, kreatin, kreatinine, &c. They seem, in 
short, to be intermediate stages of that combustion of 
which water and carbonic acid are the chief product-, 
and of which they constitute, both in their composition 
and reactions, almost the exact interval which Chemistry 
would, a 'priori, expect to find between the highly in- 
combustible mass of the animal body, and these terminal 
products of the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen, aa 
in all our artificial processes of combustion. 

Some idea of the chemical relations of these bodies 
may, however, be obtained from a contrast of their com- 
position; in which, for easier comprehension, they are 
represented without their basic water. 

Protein = C 36 Ho,X 4 10 + 2 HO : 
Gelatine . C 1S H 10 N 2 0. 
furnishing 



Non-azotised substances. 
Inosite (muscle-sugar) C 19 H ls O u 



Azotised substances. 
Kreatine . C 8 H^NgC^ 
Kreatinine C 8 H 7 N 3 a 
Inosinic acid C 10 H 6 N 2 10 
Sarcosin . C 6 H 7 N~0 4 
Glycin . C 4 H 5 N 4 

Hippuric acid C 18 H 9 N 6 
Uric acid . C 10 H 4 N 4 6 
Urea . . C 2 H 4 N 2 2 

Urea 1 eq. (C 2 H 4 N 2 2 ) + 2 eqs. water ^H 4 4 ) = 2 eqs. of carbonate of 
ammonia (2 NH 3 + 2 C0 2 ) 



Butyric acid 
Lactic acid 
Acetic acid 
Oxalic acid 
Carbonic acid 
Water . . 



. C a II- O a 

. C 4 II, 3 

C 0. 
H 



BODILY WASTE. 17 

The salts of the egesta remain in considerable obscurity > 
not only as regards their source and the mode of their 
construction, but even as regards their true nature and 
combination in the various excretory substances from which 
they are extracted by the chemist. That, on the whole, 
those which are most largely present in the blood and the 
tissues are also most largely and constantly cast out from 
them and from the body (as are the chloride of sodium and 
the phosphates); that the salts formed by various vege- 
table acids are converted into carbonates prior to the ex- 
pulsion ; that an addition to the food of large quantities 
of the salts ordinarily voided provokes a larger expulsion 
of those thus added ; that these saline egesta vary (as the 
phosphates in delirium and some brain diseases, the 
chloride of sodium in pneumonia), and remain uniform (as 
the sulphates during starvation), in circumstances for which 
we have no very complete explanations; — these, the chief 
facts as yet established respecting them, throw little light 
upon the nature and quantity of the various saline in- 
gredients required for the food of a healthy person. 

We may sum up our estimates of the daily bodily waste 
as follows : — 

Grains. 
Carbonic acid ...... 14,000 

Water (8400 of \rhicli are formed by combustion) . . 42,000 

Urea (including carbonate of ammonia 20 gra. ?) . . 480 

Other organic constituents of the urine: namely, uric acid (8), 
kreatinin (7), kreatin (4|), lactic and hippuric acids (in- 
determinate), together about .... 20 

' by the skin 80 - 



{by tlie skm so ^ 
faeces 50 S 
urine 700 J 



830 



Total .... 57.330 
C 



IS THE STEED OF FOOD. 

Hence, estimating from the researches of Valentin and 
others, that our typical man consumes about 14,570 grains 
of oxygen daily, the replacement of all his egesta would 
leave about 42,760 grains to be supplied by his food, 
minus those small quantities of water or oxygen which are 
absorbed through his skin. In other words, the main- 
tenance of the body requires about 6 lbs. of food and drink 
in the course of the twenty-four hours. 

Whatever the casual inaccuracies of these estimates, there 
can be little doubt of their substantial correctness, in so far 
as that they represent a large daily expenditure of bodily 
substance, such as can only be carried on in consequence of 
an equally large income of food. But it must, neverthe 
be recollected how wide is the interval between these two 
extremes of nutrition. And if, in attempting to bridge over 
this chasm, we go back from the egesta above mentioned, 
we light at once upon a question of extreme interest and 
importance in respect to nutrition generally, and to every 
detail of those states of health and disease which depend 
directly or indirectly upon it. The elaborated food enters 
the blood, to which its admixture may, indeed, be regarde 
the end and object of the whole digestive process. Hence 
it may be asked, " Do the metamorphoses which furnish 
the carbonic acid, water, and urea above specified, en_ 
the products of digestion immediately upon their arrival in 
the blood, or do they only affect the various tissues renewed 
or fed by these digestive products ? In other words, must 
the food poured into the blood make its way thence into 
the tissues, before it becomes effete in the sense of yielding 
the elements of the above egesta ? " 



BODILY WASTE. 19 

The answer to this question can only be arrived at try the 
result of various considerations, suggested by the chemistry 
of nutrition, but too numerous and intricate to be fitly 
entered on here. But one or two of the leading phenomena 
may suffice to indicate the direction in which the truth 
probably lies. For example, there seems good reason to 
infer that the urea daily excreted by the starving animal 
is formed in the blood, and out of these various azotised 
compounds into which the proteinous mass of the muscular 
fibre becomes converted, as it is rendered effete by its own 
contractions. And if this urea is increased by increasing 
exercise — or even if (a fact more exactly, though not more 
conclusively, established) the una excreted in a healthy 
animal, is correspondingly increased by exercise, without any 
alteration in the quantity or quality of its daily food — the 
augmentation can only be ascribed to an augmented waste, 
chiefly engaging that contractile muscular substance on 
which this increase of exercise falls. But on the other 
hand, inasmuch as half the urea excreted in the human 
subject nourished by an average diet disappears during 
starvation, or during the exclusive use of non-azotised food, it 
may be inferred that this moiety is ordinarily derived from 
the azotised elements of the food. And a similar fact may 
be found in the contrast between the proportionate quan- 
tities of this compound habitually eliminated by Carnivora 
and Herbivora : the urea of the former being twice as copious 
as that of the latter, quite apart from the circumstances of 
exercise, bodily mass, &c. And just as an analysis of a 
meat diet, or of the peptone and other substances which are 
taken into the blood as its elaborated products, would fail 

C 2 



20 THE XEED OF FOOD. 

to show either urea, or secondary and kindred compounds 
out of which urea might be directly produced, in sufficient 
quantity to account for the increased excretion of this sub- 
stance, so the suddenness with which a meal containing 
much flesh raises this excretion in exact coincidence with 
an increase of the other egesta (carbonic acid, &c.) con- 
firms the view that no intermediate conversion of such food 
into the muscular substance itself need necessarily take 
place. This view has the further advantages that while, 
on the one hand, it obviates all necessity for drawing that 
paradoxical contrast between the nutrition of the carnivo- 
rous and herbivorous animal (and even Man) which must 
otherwise be assumed, on the other hand, it gives to the 
waste of muscle in both classes that comparative uniformity, 
as well as that import to nutrition, which all the pheno- 
mena of this tissue seem to imply. 

We are, therefore, justified in inferring that the daily urea 
of a healthy man must be ascribed to two sources, 
part of it comes from the waste of his azotised tissues : and 
among these, especially of his muscular substance, from the 
kreatin and allied constituents which its syntonin and 
fibrin, form in proportion as they are rendered effete by 
muscular contraction or exercise, and discharged into his 
blood. Another part of it is derived from his food, and 
especially from the peptone which is taken up from the 
alimentary canal ; the constituents of which albuminous 
substance undergo a species of combustion in all the capil- 
laries : — a combustion which, distinct, it may be, in many 
organs from what is more specifically their function, every- 
where results in the evolution of heat, and in the forma- 
tion of urea, carbonic acid, and water. 



BODILY WASTE. 21 

The same theory must doubtless be adopted as regards 
both those two sources — the alimentary and the corporeal — 
to which we have referred the two latter egesta. In very 
different proportions, the fatty and saccharine ingredients of 
the food and of the tissues meet, as it were, in the stream 
of blood, like the sources of urea. How much the fat stored 
up in the adipose tissue of a well-nourished person may be 
spared, or even added to, while that brought by digestion 
into his blood is being consumed ; how largely, again, the 
grape sugar similarly introduced may subserve an analo- 
gous, though somewhat different, combustion, and thus 
indirectly increase the general fatty contents of the body: 
— these are points which, though they involve for their de- 
cision an exactness which our existing knowledge of the 
quantitative chemistry of the blood noway admits of, are yet 
rich in important practical suggestions, not to be dismissed 
because incapable of unqualified reception. That the excre- 
tion of the above three compounds is inseparable from the 
maintenance of life; that the body alone can furnish them 
at its own expense : and that the food not only compensates, 
but partially supersedes this loss or waste of the tissues, at 
the same time that the blood itself is the seat of a pro- 
cess by which all surcharge of certain materials may be 
burnt up and cast out without previously permeating the 
tissues; — these are the lessons which, in a dietetic point 
of view, the chemistry of excretion seems best calculated to 
teach us. 

The ingestion of food may thus be regarded as fulfilling 
a two-fold purpose : on the one hand, replacing the wasted 
tissues ; on the other hand, diminishing or staving off their 

c 3 



22 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

further waste by itself undergoing that combustion neces- 
sary both for the production of the animal heat, and for 
the throng of delicate chemical reactions which only the 
comparatively fixed and uniform temperature that pervades 
the organisms of the higher animals can fitly conditionate. 
And this two-fold office, which reconciles the other 
unintelligible discrepancies of the nutrition of many allied 
genera and species of animals habitually feeding on animal 
and vegetable substances respectively — without which we 
should have to assume that the muscular tissues of a 
slothful carnivorous quadruped waste three or four timi 
quickly as do those of the timid herbivorous creatures wl 
whole existence is almost one continuous act of locomol 
to escape his pursuit ; and that a vegetarian diet for the 
human subject, must, by lowering the rate vi' exchi 
which provides for the muscular function, pi nally 

reduce the vigour of this function itself— presents us with 
a remarkable safeguard against excess, in consonance with 
similar arrangements found in other stages of nutril 
The quickening spring which enters that fountain of 
to which we may fitly compare the rushing stream of blood, 
is prevented, as it were, from causing this stream to I 
down and overflow its banks, and so destroying the sur- 
rounding fields it is intended gently to irrigate, by a pro- 
vision which may be likened to the waste pipe of our cis- 
terns, carrying away all superfluity from the body by t 
excretory channels of which the carbonic acid, urea and 
water, of the lungs and kidneys, are the chief exponent.-. 

That food, indeed, need not necessarily go through the 
stage of living tissue before undergoing combustion and 



BODILY TTASTE. 23 

elimination, seems scarcely less indicated by other facts, 
suggesting a parallel change in substances such as we can 
hardly imagine incorporated with the various structures, 
much less developed into them. The process which con- 
verts many of the organic salts of the alkalis into carbo- 
nates in the short interval between their ingestion and 
their reappearance in the urine, is one which, as regards its 
results, closely parallels the artificial combustion of the la- 
boratory; and can scarcely be attributed to any other 
change than a combustion like that which furnishes the 
carbonic acid of the habitual . But it would be 

difficult to specify any tissue of the body which tartaric or 
citric acid helps to build up ; just as, even assuming such a 
metamorphosis, it would be impossible to imagine pro- 
cesses of histological' formation and removal as instan- 
taneous as th<»se which the chemistry of excretion* shows 
this combustion to imply.* The rapid elimination of the 
gelatine of the food a< ureaf seems also to imply a change, 
equally removed from the tissues, and therefore located 
in the blood. 

It must, however, be remembered that, in regarding the 
blood as especially the seat of this combustive process, 
we are only indicating it as the antithesis, or rather the 



* The frequent influence of oxalic and "benzoic acids taken in the food, 
in causing the development of large quantities of these or kindred sub- 
stances, eliminated as such by the kidneys, would also be found, on con- 
sidering its rapidity and amount, equally adverse to this view of the 
exclusively histogeiietic import of the food, and favourable to the claims 
of the circulating blood, as at least one chief site of the chemistry of 
nutrition. 

f See the Chapter on Animal Food. 

C 4 



24 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

complement, of the tissues themselves ; and that between 
these two hypothetic seats of the process — between the 
muscle, for example, on the one hand, and the adjacent 
capillaries on the other — intervene various fluids, inter- 
mediate in composition and office to both. The nutritional 
fluid which soaks the muscular fibre, and thus constitutes 
a 'pabulum from which the more solid parts of this fibre 
are derived (not to say deposited), gradually merges in 
composition as it approaches the capillary, from a specific 
muscular juice to a kind of dilute liquor sanguinis, proba- 
bly differing in little but its smaller proportions of albumen 
and fibrin from the true blood-liquor within the capillary 
wall. And, obscure and uncertain as is our knowledge of 
the details of the bodily combustion, we are likely to be 
nearest the truth in assuming that the microscopically 
close proximity, the intimate diffusion, and the immediate 
connection of these different liquids (as we may really term 
them) remits to all of them a share in the production of 
animal heat. The blood and the tissues may indeed be the 
theoretical extremes, or poles, of this process. But the nu- 
tritional fluid must, in strictness, be regarded as the chief 
or collective site of the decomposition this process implies. 
And a similar, though less important, office must be 
assigned to the serum which bathes the areolar tissues that 
are the ministers and companions of the muscular fibres in 
their contractile efforts. 

Such considerations may further suffice to show the 
impossibility of forming any even approximative esti- 
mate of the period during which the body is com- 
pletely renewed by an interchange of the whole of its 






BODILY WASTE. 25 

substance. Not only, they would suggest, has every 
genus and species of animal its own peculiarities in this 
respect — peculiarities connected with its organisation gene- 
rally ; but even the individual, apart from the important 
qualifications of age and sex, is subject to similar, if less 
considerable, variations. And while, in contrasting the 
several tissues of the body with each other, we may trace 
the indications of an increasing rapidity of their waste and 
reconstruction, from a zero represented by such hard masses 
as enamel and bone to a large (though indeterminate) 
maximum in some of the softer (especially the muscular) 
tissues ; yet every detail of alimentation, both as to quantity 
and quality, seems to conditionate its corresponding modi- 
fication in the nutrition of all the organs. Furthermore, 
though all definite statement so utterly fails us, that the old 
view of a total renewal of the body every seven years may be 
regarded as scarcely less fabulous than the natural history 
of the Phoenix, still that comparison of the various tissues, 
which is all that can be attempted, is physiologically more 
accurate, as well as important. The particles of an adult 
bone move so slowly through their cycle of molecular life, 
that we can hardly say how long they may not last; indeed, 
it is their morphology which mainly decides* their renewal 
within, a few years. Cartilage, muscle, skin, and some 
other tissues, seem to have not only a shorter, but a more 
definite life ; bounded within limits which may be inferred 
from their phenomena of attrition, emaciation or enlarge- 
ment, and desquamation respectively. The relative dura- 

* The important histological details furnished by Messrs. Tomes and Do 
Morgan are here alluded to. 



26 THE SEED OF FOOD. 

tion of the semi-liquid pulp of the nervous masses remains a 
mystery, and defies all calculation, chemical or otherwise : 
indeed, for aught we know, these structures may outlive, 
in this molecular sense, tissues such as might seem, in 
respect of their composition and structure, far more defiant 
of change; in respect of their office, far less active and 
energetic sources of those vital forces which in general, are 
only conditionated by rapid flux and decay. 

Valuable illustrations of these cursory statements re- 
specting food and waste may be found in certain conditi 
in which the specific course of the latter part of the nutri- 
tive process is observed, uncomplicated by variations in 
amount of ingest a. 

The hybernation of certain Mammal- is shown by I 
admirable researches of Valentin and others to be a kind 
of natural experiment on some of these details of nutrition. 
To avoid the protracted cold and hunger implied in their 
long winter, these animals are enabled to fall into a 
torpor; which, with brief intervals, lasts until the a 
spring again affords them the food and warmth they re- 
quire for active life. Plunged into a sleep far deeper than 
any ordinary slumber, to all appearance not only dr< 
but insensible — unwaked by irritation, or even by severe 
wounds — the Marmot can as little be regarded a 
as a sleeping animal, in the strict physiological sense of 
these words. A heart beating feebly about twice in the 
minute, and lungs which expand but slightly, and a" 
three or four times less frequently : such a reduction of 
these, the two chief functions of organic life, quite ex- 
plains the other phenomena of the hybernant state : — the 



BODILY WASTE. 27 

lowered temperature ; the smaller quantity of carbonic acid 
excreted; and that diminished activity of nutrition in gene- 
ral, of which the diminished number of blood-corpuscles, 
and the arrested growth of hair and nails after cutting, are 
perhaps some of the most obvious indications. 

The numerical phenomena of nutrition during the hy- 
bernant state seem, so far as they are at present known, to 
be quite specific. That the daily relative loss of the tissues 
in general is but small, the length of time more or less 
occupied by this torpor might lead us a priori to expect. 
Their total loss is, however, sometimes little less than 
40 per cent., a proportion quite as great as that which is 
generally attained in death by starvation. So little is 
sometimes lost from day to day, that the oxygen absorbed 
by the enfeebled respiration seems occasionally to turn the 
scale by converting this loss into a gain ; especially when 
the animal is surrounded by an atmosphere moist to satu- 
ration, and therefore incapable of taking up as vapour the 
water formed in the body. Further, it would seem that, 
though the hybernant creature is rather in the position of 
a cold-blooded animal, in the fact that its temperature is, 
within a certain limit, dictated by that of the surrounding 
medium, still its heat is sometimes greater than can be well 
accounted for by its diminished exhalation of carbonic acid. 
Perhaps, however, this peculiarity receives a sufficient expla- 
nation in the comparative waste of its tissues; the loss telling 
chiefly on its fat, severely on its (fatty?) skeleton, but little 
(barely one-sixth oftheir total mass) on its muscles,moderately 
on the liver, and least of all on its heart and nervous system. 
How greatly this economy of muscular substance is favoured 



28 



THE NEED OP FOOD. 



by the immobility of the torpid animal it is scarcely neces- 
sary to point out. But it is worth noticing that the com- 
bustion of fatty matter, as contrasted with that of muscle, 
would give off a much larger amount of heat, as well as a 
much larger proportion of water to carbonic acid.* 

Of the various diseases in which waste is maintained, or 
even exalted, concurrently with a diminution in the daily 
food, there is scarcely one at which we can profitably 
glance here ; most of them being complicated with peculia- 
rities, both physiological and pathological (if we may draw 
so doubtful a distinction), which prevent their affording 
any direct and important conclusions. Fever, consumption, 
diabetes, and certain conditions allied to the two latter 
maladies, are thus of little avail at present as illustrations 
of nutrition in the stricter sense of this word. 

Starvation in all its forms is perhaps scarcely more 
available as an illustration of the import of food, without a 
careful discrimination between these forms themselves. In 
death by thirst, the phenomena are mainly those of a poi- 
soning of the whole blood, resulting in a condition which 
somewhat resembles fever, and finally attacks the nervous 
centre with symptoms of delirium and coma. In death by 
what is, after all, the purest variety of starvation — the with- 
holdance of all alimentary matters, save only water — the 
symptoms and appearances are characteristic enough. But 
even here, many circumstances capable of modifying the 
results must be taken into account. The species, age. size, 
fatness, of the animal ; the degree of movement permitted 



* See foot-note to p. 33. 



BODILY WASTE. 29 

or enforced upon it daring the period of starvation ; and 
the surrounding temperature ; are all capable of influencing 
the result. While it need hardly be said that any such more 
gradual process of the same kind, as destroys life by slowly 
decreasing the daily ingestion of all the alimentary princi- 
ples, instead of suddenly withdrawing them, would be far 
from answering to such a brief description of acute starva- 
tion as we shall now attempt. 

In acute starvation the feeling of hunger, which is in 
health the earliest and most natural signal of the require- 
ments of the system, gradually increases in severity to a 

| ravenous degree; a craving which, though not definable as 
pain, is in its way just as truly agony as the burning sen- 
sation which seems to crawl through every vein in fever, 
or the mortal suffering which is felt when the breath is 
checked in impending suffocation. As time goes on, this 

I craving seems to become less prominent, at any rate to be 
less distinguishable as hunger, merging into a feverous, and 
often delirious, condition ; the true import of which is, how- 
ever, often signalled by the fact that its illusions relate to 
the act of eating. Increasing debility of mind and body 
now conduct the sufferer to his death; from which 
neither the ingestion of food, nor all the aid Medicine can 
afford, have sometimes sufficed to rescue persons found in 
an advanced state of starvation. The capacities for diges- 
tion and assimilation seem, indeed, to be profoundly involved 
at a comparatively early stage of the process ; after which 
time restoration can scarcely be brought about, save by 
a skilful selection and adaptation of the food, both in quan- 
tity and quality, to the morbidly weakened powers of those 



30 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

organs and secretions, by which alone its elaboration can 
be effected. 

The absolute date of death may be estimated as ranging 
from ten to twenty days, with a maximum of twenty-one 
(twenty-three?) days. The majority of cases would pro- 
bably be bounded by fourteen days ; indeed, unless under 
circumstances unusually favourable, both as regards pre- 
vious nutrition and the impossibility of all exertion (as 
in persons suddenly isolated from the outer world by a fall 
of earth in a pit or mine), this date is rarely exceeded. 

The amount of bodily substance lost before death cannot 
be better summed up than by the average proportion de- 
duced by Chossat for various animals ; namely, two-fifths of 
the healthy body. In the human subject perhaps this 
estimate is a trifle too large; just as, conversely, it seems 
scarcely equal to the waste of some of the smaller Mam- 
malia during starvation. 

A valuable insight into the details of this statement has, 
how T ever, been obtained from the toilsome and admirable 
researches of Bidder and Schmidt on animals: — researches 
which afford what is, in many respects, a more complete 
and accurate account of the chemistry (or rather the phy- 
siology) of starvation, than any mere observations on the 
human subject are ever likely to supply. 

Looking to the egesta, the daily urea drops in a day or 
two to about half of its previous amount ; and, diminishing 
but little during the next period, sinks to one-fifth, and 
then to one-tenth, in the two last d^js of life. 

The inorganic constituents given off, and among these 
especially the sulphuric and phosphoric acids, experience a 






BODILY WASTE. 31 

somewhat similar, though less marked, reduction. Eapidly 
losing their associated salts, including their chlorides, they 
fall, in the first day or so, to an absolute amount of about 
one-half of their previous average ; from which proportion 
they gradually sink until shortly (18 — 24 hours) before 
death, when they dwindle to one-sixth or one-third. 
During much of this time, however, the decreasing weight 
of the whole body makes their proportionate amount a 
somewhat increased one. 

The * carbonic acid, as regards its absolute amount, 
gradually sinks to one-half its quantity before death. 
But as regards its proportion to the wasted body, it 
remains tolerably constant, increasing somewhat in the 
latter half of the period of inanition, to decrease slightly 
in the last two days. 

The water formed by combustion of the hydrogen of 
the tissues increases during the w T hole period; at first 
quickly, latterly more slowly. This increase, which is 
shown by the increasing amount of absorbed oxygen 
not applied to the formation of carbonic acid, corresponds 
to a rise from about 3 to 4. The absolute quantity 
of oxygen absorbed is continually a smaller one, sinking 
to about half by a decrease which is most rapid at the 
beginning and end of the process, but is pretty uniform 
in its middle. Relatively, however, to the altered bulk of 
the animal, or to the fraction of its tissues daily consumed, 
it is slowly increased, nearly from 3 to 4 ; only subsiding to 
its original amount in the last few hours of life. The 
watery vapour of expiration is diminished proportionally 
to the carbonic acid until shortly before death, when it 



32 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

rises to a level below its original proportion. Lastly, the 
temperature of the animal only sinks in the last three 
days of life ; its excess of about 32° F. over the surrounding 
air sinking to about 21° before life becomes extinct. 

From examining the body of such an animal, and com- 
paring the amounts of its various tissues with those of 
another healthy animal reduced to the original weight 
of the starved one, it would seem that the different tissues 
and organs undergo very unequal degrees of waste. 
The process of inanition deprives the blood and fat of 
about 90 per cent, of their mass; the pancreas and salivary 
glands of 85 per cent. ; the muscles, liver, and spleen, of 
60 to 70 ; the blood vessels, lungs, and intestines, of 25 ; 
the bones, it would appear, of part of their water only; 
and lastly, the nervous system, of a quantity inappreciably 
small. 

The absolute waste of course tells chiefly on the two 
chief tissues which divide between them the furnishing 
of those egesta above alluded to. The steady gradual 
diminution of the bodily weight is mainly the result of 
the waste of (1) the various albuminous tissu b, i" which 
the muscular mass may be regarded as the most important 
representative ; and (2 ) the nitty tissues. Of these the albu- 
minous tissues, both as regards their urea above mentioned, 
and the oxidisable residue left after subtracting this 
substance, show a waste which sinks to one-half in the 
first two days of inanition, then remains constant another 
week or so, at the end of which time it slowly sinks, to 
undergo a still more rapid decrease in the two last days 
of life. ^Yhile the fatty tissues daily oxidised seem to 



BODILY WASTE. 33 

increase rather suddenly and largely on the first and 
second days, to diminish thereafter by nearly the same 
quantity daily from the beginning to the end of the 
process. Proportionally, indeed, to a given quantity of 
the bodily substance, the oxidation of fat seems to increase 
during the whole period of inanition up to nearly the 
last moment of life. In other words, the amount of fat 
consumed for each pound of the bodily weight has to 
the similar amount of wasted albuminous tissue a ratio 
which rises from 1 -6 on the first day of starvation, to nearly 
3*1 on the last. 

Without attempting their detailed explanation, certain 
of the above facts may be illustrated by some simple 
considerations of a chemical character. The increase of 
carbonic acid and water of combustion is explained by 
the continually larger share taken by the fatty tissues in 
the waste of the body ; and by the larger proportions of 
oxidizable carbon and hydrogen which (as shown by the 
elementary * composition of fat) are derived from this 
substance, as contrasted with an equal quantity of albumen. 
The maintenance, or even increase, of bodily temperature, 
is similarly explained ; an equal weight of fatty matter 
giving off a larger amount of heat, or number of " units 
of temperature " than would albumen, f It is interesting 

* Thus fat (C 10 H 9 = 77), less one equivalent of water, would leave 
(C 10 H 8 = 68 or ff = ) 88*3 per cent, of its original mass in the form of carbon 
andjhydrogen for oxidation. While albumen (C 36 H 25 N 4 10 = 377), less 
two equivalents of urea(C 4 H 8 N 4 4 )andsixof water (H 6 6 ), leaves (C 32 K ±1 
= 209 or §yy=) 53-84 per cent, of these elements. 

t Applying to the above data Dulong's estimates of the units of heat 
given out in the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen into carbonic acid and 

D 



34 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

to compare the large consumption of muscular substance 
with its very moderate waste in the hybernant animal; 
the more so, that the contrast is noway explained by 
the comparative immobility of the latter, prolonged as 
its torpid state is during many months of perpetual car- 
diac and respiratory movement, with wakeful intervals of 
active, though brief, exercise. But, great as is the pro- 
portionate waste of muscle in starvation, it must be noticed 
that even this waste seems transcended by that of the 
blood ; which, however we may speak of it as albuminous 
in respect of mere composition, appears to be far more 
influential by its total or physiological import than by 
any such chemical character. Here again, assuming the 
total mass of blood to be adequately represented by it- 
corpuscles, there is a great contrast between starvation 
and hybernation : the losses of blood in the two fA 
being as 90 to 50 or 60 ; in other words, as three to two 
respectively. 

This brings us to the last point we need notice : the com- 
paratively sudden and equable manner in which both the 
waste of albuminous tissues, and the products of this waste, 
decline during the last few hours of life. Such a failure, 
evidently systematic and general — nay, pathologically 
speaking, pointing with no uncertain finger to the nervous 
system as its seat — is singularly contrasted with the unal- 
tered mass of the nervous tissues themselves, the corn- 
water respectively, wo may calculate that 100 grains of fat would set free 
59520 such units against not more than 297*27 liberated by 100 g- 
of albumen. In other words, the combustion of fat liberates twice the 
heat given out by an equal weight of albumen. 






BODILY WASTE. 35 

mencing involvement of which one might therefore almost 
fancy was the immediate cause of death. The fatty tissues 
of the body being burnt, the demands for these hydro- 
carbons begin to attack the nervous centre, and the citadel 
of life is at once vanquished by the paralysis of those in- 
dispensable cardiac and respiratory movements which it 
dictates and controls. Attractive and plausible as this 
theory is — nay, more, well as it serves to group together 
the facts — a further consideration of these facts would 
delay its adoption, if not suggest a preference for another 
view. A deeper involvement, and larger waste*, of the 
hybernant's fat does not attack its nervous system. And 
the steady maintenance of the quantity of fatty matter 
habitually consumed in the starving animal to the last day 
of its life, looks equally unlike that total failure in the 
supply of adipose tissue which is supposed to precede, and 
cause, the attack on the central and peripheric nervous 
masses. On the other hand, it is in the relative waste of 
the blood that we find the broadest (though, it must be 
owned, the least exactly established) contrast between 
starvation and hybernation. And while it is very sig- 
nificant to find the waste of the starved animal's blood 
far surpassing (as 90 to 60) that of its muscles, it is not 
less so to notice how vastly any great diminution of this 
fluid would affect the whole processes of waste ; as well as 
how directly and suddenly it might jeopardise, and indeed 
destroy, all those complex and delicate functions con- 

* According to the elaborate researches of Valentin, the fat of the 
Marmot is reduced to less than ^th of its original amount by the total 
winter sleep. 

D 2 



36 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

ditionated, as we daily see, by its circulation through the 
nervous tissues themselves. 

But while it is probable that there are many variations 
in the phenomena of acute starvation, which would be 
revealed by larger inquiries like those alluded to; and 
while it is certain, both that the circumstances of the par- 
ticular animal always materially affect the results, and 
that the above details are scarcely applicable by mere 
transfer to the starvation of the very different and higher 
form of animal life exemplified by the human subject: it 
may be also pointed out, that there are other forms of 
starvation, scarcely less numerous than the casual circum- 
stances of this its typical variety, and merging into each 
other by gradations, such as sometimes render all exact 
distinction impossible. 

For example, we distinguish death by thirst from death 
by hunger, not only by its name and nature, but by its 
symptoms and appearances; from which latter we deduce 
that it falls with extreme and disproportionate severity on 
the circulation, and even (it may be suggested ) on those de- 
tails of the mechanism of this function which indispensably 
require a certain dilution or tenuity of the blood. 
indicated by some of the phenomena of Asiatic cholera. 
But however plausible such a view, we can hardly regard 
it as affording a sufficient explanation of the symptoms and 
result of a complete withholdanoe of watery fluid; the 
w r ant of which would be as necessarily fatal to the organ- 
ism, as that of any other alimentary principle. Nay, 
more ; the very same food which in one animal would 
inevitably bring about death by thirst, doc-, in another, 



BODILY WASTE. 37 

permit life -and health to be maintained for an inde- 
finite period — in other words, contains sufficient mois- 
ture, and water of composition, to replace the total watery- 
expenditure of the creature's system. Hence there is no 
reason for distinguishing this kind of starvation, as re- 
gards its nature, from that producible by the deficiency of 
any other essential of the food. Indeed, we have seen 
that, even in the typical starvation, the state of the blood 
may perhaps dictate the fatal event, as it certainly does 
many of the symptoms of the process. 

In short, whatever the deficiencies of the food of an 
animal, let them only reach a given amount, and death 
must soon ensue. Must ensue, so far as regards the bodily 
expenditure we have summed up, if they fail to cover the 
daily losses of all its wasted substances : whether these be 
tissues like blood, or muscle, or fat; or ingredients like 
salts; or the larger, and no less essential, constituent of 
water. And while, as regards the time of death, and 
the proportion of the bodily mass lost before this event, 
the various classes of animals offer important differences ; 
and the degree of alimentary insufficiency, as well as the 
rate of its access, must influence both results, as shown by 
many * diseases ; still there is a close relation of the two, in 
all the higher Mammalia. The symptoms of inanition also 
somewhat resemble each other, however various their cause. 
Whether a dog be fed exclusively on white of egg, sugar, 
oil, or gelatine, the resulting symptoms of cachectia, though 

* The human body, which often loses a pound daily for many weeks to- 
gether in typhoid fever, may be reduced by more chronic diseases far below 
fths of its ordinary weight before these maladies, and after recovery. 

D 3 



38 THE NEED OF FOOD. 

sometimes pointing to that particular ingredient of food 
which has been given in this unnatural isolation, closely 
resemble each other. Ulceration of the cornea, blind- 
ness, extreme debility, and emaciation, generally precede 
death ; though their degree, and the dates of their occur- 
rence, are liable to vary. And it would seem that more 
general starvation may, when chronic, illustrate the same 
rule, even in the human subject ; in whom similar ulceration 
of the eye, and dysenteric purging attended with intestinal 
lesion also of an ulcerative character, have frequently 
been noticed to precede the more constitutional mischief. 
Nor is it difficult to trace the germs of analogous phenomena 
in that peculiar poisoning of the blood which constitutes 
the disease known as scurvy. To these points, however, 
we shall incidentally return hereafter. 



39 



CHAP. IL 

THE NATURE OF FOOD. ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 

Definition of Food. — Distinction from Drink. — Belation to other Ingesta* 
— Nature of Food. — Its Organic Source. — Hence Contrast andKelations 
of the Animal and the Plant. — Chemical Relations of Food to the Body. 
— Its Variety essential. — Milk as a Model Food. — Constituents of Food. 
— Protein-compounds. — Fats, or Hydro-carbons. — Sugar and Starch, or 
Hydrates of Carbon. — Water. — Salts. 

A glance at the daily losses of the body has shown us 
the need of a large addition to its substance, in order to 
the replacement of that waste of its various tissues, which 
these losses represent. We have next to discuss the 
materials added for this purpose ; especially their quality 
and quantity: characters which we shall find are best 
described in their natural (though imperfectly known) 
relations to the same bodily waste, to which we have 
endeavoured to trace the losses they compensate. 

" What is food ? " in the ordinary sense of this word, 
is a question to which common experience suggests a 
sufficient answer : " The solid nourishment taken by the 
mouth into the body." 

That the word food, however, has a larger meaning, 
and one which more closely approximates to its physio- 
logical import, a moment's consideration would show us. 

D 4 



40 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

Thus, in regarding milk as the food of the infant, we 
modify the above definition by ignoring the conventional 
antithesis between food and drink. Indeed the shadowy 
character of the boundary between the two is well illus- 
trated by the facility with which the great Spanish casuist, 
Escobar, could reassert the rights of outraged nature ; 
and on the principle " liquidum non rumpit jejunum*' 
permit his devout co-religionists to fast on the very stiffest 
of chocolate, as being drink and not food. And a more 
physiological casuist could point to the temporary 
tenance of life by nutritious enemata, by baths, and by 
injections into a fistulous stomach or bowel, as further 
modifying the above dictum of common experience by 
-showing such an entry of food into the body as evades the 
mouth: or could perhaps instance asfo] transfuf 

of blood as defying even Escobar himself, with all the 
assistance he might derive from modern science, to decide 
whether or no the patient had been fed. 

Physiology, then, declines to distinguish between fo 
and v drink ; or rather, if it used the latter word at all, would 
limit it to distilled water, devoid of all dissolved solids. 
It thus declares the ordinary acceptation and use of ti 
terms to be, however convenient, scientifically inaccurate ; 
perhaps capable of generally indicating the consistence, 
but quite incapable of connoting the quality, of the 
matters they represent : nay, more, misrepresenting them, 
in so far as it suggests a distinction which has no existence, 
and alike overlooks the solids dissolved in all ordinary 
drinks, the water contained in all solid aliments, and 
the nourishment which we shall find even the purest 






FOOD AND DKINK. 41 

distilled water must be allowed to impart, as w T ell as to 
mediate. 

The term drink, then, used in the physiological sense, 
is included in food ; used in the ordinary sense, implies it. 
And the only further question which therefore arises 
respecting the definition of food, concerns the extent which 
we must assign to it. Are all the ingesta of the body to 
be included under this head? Or, if not, to which of 
these ingesta shall we restrict it ? 

It is hardly necessary to point out that we cannot wrest 
the term from its ordinary acceptation to that wider meaning 
which would regard all the ingesta as food. Divisions are 
indispensable in all subjects, and may be convenient and 
useful— nay, substantially accurate — in spite of their being 
chargeable with inherent obscurities, or open to casuistic 
difficulties, and to verbal quibbles. For example : — that 
the very large proportion of oxygen daily absorbed ought 
not to rank as food, depends, not merely on the general 
necessity of distinguishing two such very different functions 
as respiration and digestion, but also on considerations 
referring to most of their details. For instance, it is 
doubtful whether any part of the oxygen taken into 
the body is ever directly built up into its substance, and 
certain that most of it appears merely to combine with 
the blood in a proportion which has a close relation with 
that of the other gaseous contents of this liquid — espe- 
cially of its carbonic acid. And though we have found 
reason to believe that a large proportion of the food 
absorbed also passes through the blood into the excretions 
without taking that deviation which would conduct it 



42 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

into the tissues, while it is obvious (comp. Chapter V.) 
that much of it passes directly through the alimentary canal 
without penetrating the organism at all, we may find a 
sufficient physiological distinction between food and air 
in the facts, that the food not only enters the body by a 
different channel, and through the instrumentality of very 
different processes, but that these circumstances, which 
would oblige us to make a distinction, and coin a word 
to express it, even were there none ready at hand, exactly 
concur with still more marked differences in the nature 
and form of the materials added to the body by digestion 
and respiration. We might easily correct the notion that 
a drink like broth was not food, by pointing to the solid 
contents, and nourishing effects, of this liquid. But it 
would be trifling with words to attempt to persuade any 
man, whether full or fasting, that the air he breathed 
was food, or that the water he had unconsciously absorbed 
in a bath belonged to the same category. Such unnatural 
ingenuity, the habitual exercise of which would destroy 
the use of all language, is fortunately checked by common 
sense; which, like the duchess who refused to accept 
the legal definition that denied her affinity to her own 
son, would probably decline to give up a substantia] result 
of experience to grasp at a pedantic shadow, or to regard 
the dog in JEsop's fable as having merely modified his 
diet when he let go the meat, and grasped a mouthful 
of oxygen. 

For any reasonable purpose, then, we may define the 
food as including all those substances which enter the 
alimentary canal from without the body, to be submitted 



FOOD ALWAYS OBGANIC. 43 

to the digestive function. Fully conceding that, as respects 
the function of nutrition to which it ministers, its absorbed 
products may be aided and supplemented by cutaneous ab- 
sorption, just as we have seen it may be for awhile supplanted 
by absorption from the bodily tissues themselves — and that, 
unaided by respiration, it would not suffice to support life 
— there seems no reason to disturb the ordinary acceptation 
of the word, further than to give it that wider and more 
accurate meaning which allows it to include most drinks. 

Still limiting our attention to that aspect of nutrition 
which relates to the mere maintenance of the adult 
body, we shall find that it is the composition of its 
structures, and the rate of their wear and tear, that chiefly 
determine the kind of food it makes use of, and the 
quantity it consumes within a given space of time. And 
as regards the exact degree of this dependence, we shall 
find that here, as elsewhere, the operations of organised 
nature are only limited by wide general principles within 
which are apparently conceded great variety and fluctuation. 
The laws of nutrition are, so to speak, universal in their 
range, but elastic in their application. 

In respect to the nature of the food, we may first notice, 
that by far the larger part of it is always derived from the 
organic, and never from the inorganic, world. In other 
words, the chemistry of the organism has little power of 
construction or synthesis. So that, although a proximate 
analysis of the tissues of the animal body presents us with 
compounds which may be shown to consist chiefly of a few 
elementary substances united to each other in varying pro- 
portions, still the uncombined carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, 



44 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

and nitrogen, which, may surround or penetrate the living 
animal, are never directly built up into these tissues. On 
the contrary, the various substances which form the proxi- 
mate principles of the several structures of the organism 
are themselves produced by the metamorphosis of kindred 
compounds introduced in the food: — compounds which 
have been in their turn derived from the vegetable king- 
dom; either directly, in the shape of plants, or indirectly, 
from substances constructed out of vegetable tissues by the 
organism of another animal. And the inorganic substances 
introduced as such into the body seem almost restricted to 
the subordinate (though equally indispensable) office of 
combining with these products of vegetable life, and modi- 
fying their actions in obedience to the necessities of the 
animal. In what form they are present in its tissues we 
know not. But while it is certain that the combinations 
actually existing here dming life are often very different 
from those we find in analysing the dead tissues— and | - 
sible that a single element of these inorganic dubstana 
sometimes combined directly with all the other iii_ 
dients of the tissue — we may sum up their general value 
under the two aspects of, (1) the chemical composition 
which they complete, and (2) the vital flux which <; 
direct or indirect result of this composition") they heli< 
conditionate. 

The above statement as to the organic nature of the food 
suggests some interesting considerations. 

In the first place, it seems to show that the living animal 
of to-day pre-supposes another organisation o{ yesterday : — 
that its individual descent from two creatures of the same 



PLANT AND ANIMAL CONTRASTED. 45 

species is accompanied by a less evident, but quite as real, 
transmission of substance from several previous beings. 
In short, that the greater part of its entire mass might be 
regarded as the sum of various legacies, which have been 
bequeathed to the existing organism by the various plants 
and animals that lived before it. 

In the next place, it indicates a fixed and definite rela- 
tion between the plant and the animal. The former is 
thus the chief agent in the constructive chemistry of the 
latter : — a necessary link in that chain of processes which 
builds up organic principles out of the elements of inor- 
ganic nature, or out of those simpler products into which 
the particles of the animal body are finally converted by 
its waste during life, and its putrefaction after death. The 
carbonic acid given off by the living or dead animal may 
especially exemplify the latter remark ; converted as it is 
by the vegetable from a poisonous gas into various sub- 
stances which are in the highest sense alimentary, and 
essential to the life of the animal. 

Such a relation perhaps justifies an attempt to contrast 
the food and the digestive process of these two forms of life. 

In the animal a highly azotised composition is connected 
with — and probably essential to — an active life ; which, in 
its turn, implies a rapid waste of substance. On the other 
hand, the plant lives slowly, wastes little, and contains but 
a small quantity of azotised material. 

The food of each appears to correspond with these re- 
quirements. That of the plant is, in great part, inorganic ; 
consisting mainly of compounds which pervade the soil 
that surrounds its roots, or the air which bathes its leaves. 



46 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

While that of the animal is organic; that is, the sub- 
stances which compose it are the products of a previous 
organisation. 

The elaboration of the food repeats the preceding con- 
trast. The plant builds up inorganic into organic matter : 
— a process of chemical synthesis, which may well be 
effected with great difficulty, and by slow stages. While 
the animal scarcely does more than convert one proximate 
principle into another ; — a metamorphosis which involves 
no change of composition, and the facility of which is but 
partially counterbalanced by its requisite rapidity and 
amount, and the delicacy of its adjustments. 

The agents of these processes are also susceptible of 
contrast. For in the vegetable they appear to be more 
dependent upon external forces, such as li_ r lit. heat) and 
electricity. While, in the animal, they Beem more depen- 
dent upon causes inherent to the organism.* 

And in both, the site of the elaboration or change in the 
food corresponds to those situations where the above agents 
are most readily applicable: — viz., in the plant, to the 
leaves and other green parts of its surface: in the animal, 
to a cavity in its interior. The presence of such a cavity 
not only permits the less frequent application of nutritious 
substance to be compensated by the ingestion of large 
quantities at particular times ; but, while it thus meets the 
peculiar requirements of an animal organism, also allo¥ 
that locomotion which is so necessary to the mere prehen- 

* Traces of this contrast between the animal and plant during 

be found in those processes of putrefaction and " ereinaeausis " whii 
tively effect their dissolution after death. 



PLANT AND ANIMAL COXTKASTED. 47 

si on and selection of its scarcer food. Its subjection to 
volition renders ingestion a work of rapid and powerful 
mechanical force, in place of a slow physical imbibition. 
And finally, the same internal situation which directly sub- 
jects its contents to the agents of the digestive metamor- 
phosis, also isolates them from all surrounding objects, 
besides favouring the temperature often necessary to the 
operation.* 

Doubtless such a contrast ignores many important re- 
semblances between the two. For example, there are traces 
in the plant of a process of waste, which evolves heat, gives 
out carbonic acid, absorbs oxygen, and thus suggests an oxi- 
dation like that ascribable to the tissues of the animal body. 
Further, we are ignorant of the exact share taken by the 
more elaborate organic ingredients of the humus in the 
nutrition of most plants, or how closely some of these 
ingredients approach the secondary organic compounds 
derivable from the protein group. On the other hand, the 
conjecture that some of these very compounds may aid 
the nutrition of the animal, becomes continually stronger 
as we pass down the scale from the great scavengers of 

* Hence, instead of a digestion corresponding to that of the animal, the 
plant presents us with a process in which mere reception is so predomi- 
nant, and elaboration so diffuse, and so subversive of all the previous pro- 
perties of the food, that we might almost compare it with the absorption of 
the chyme and chyle into the blood. As a kind of fanciful corollary to this, 
vre might regard the crust of the earth, and the atmosphere which surroundj 
it, as forming a common stomach or receptacle of food for the whole vege- 
table kingdom. For they include or receive, detain, and give up the 
chemical food of the plant ; in quantities which, though ordinarily suffi- 
cient, are capable of being locally exhausted by the excessive demands of 
particular species or genera, and renewed by an artificial supply. 



48 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

the Bird and Eeptile classes to the humbler Invertebrata : 
many of whom evidently turn back toward the animal 
kingdom various matters just about to leave it by further 
decomposition, and fix them in their own bodies. Still 
the contrast remains useful and even accurate ; so that, for 
example, we know of no animal which is nourished by the 
carbonic acid and ammonia so largely applied to the ma- 
terials of the vegetable tissue. 

Lastly, since animal and vegetable life are thus alike 
complementary to each other, in their broader features and 
their minuter details, we may conjecture that, in the pre- 
sent disposition of our planet, they form what is almost a 
constant magnitude : — a sum of organised life, the amount 
of which is subject to but slight variations from one time 
to another. Nay more, we may almost suspect that the 
total of animal existence — ■ the materials of which range 
thus regularly through vegetable organisation as an essen- 
tial part of their cycle of metamorphosis — is in the main 
equally constant and fixed. Created by what even modern 
science must be content to own as a miracle, in the strictest 
sense of the word, it seems not improbable that the collec- 
tive outlines of animal and vegetable Life are dictated by 
some vast law of this kind. According to such a law, each 
by each, and both together, would make up certain con- 
stant units ; the innumerable constituent fractions of which 
might vary within vast limits, without exercising any effect 
on their respective sums. And thus the world of Life 
around us would only parallel that perpetual flux, but un- 
altered quantity, which the chemist has long predicated of 
the various elements that compose the globe we inhabit. 



CHEMISTRY OF NUTRITION. 49 

But if, on the one hand, the animal is incapable of con- 
structing its complex tissues from the simple elements of 
inorganic nature, still, on the other hand, it is not bound 
down by such rigorous chemical necessities, as to demand a 
food possessing an exact identity of composition with itself. 
A large proportion of the animal creation feed on a veget- 
able diet, the constituents of which deviate considerably 
from those of their own mass. And but very few of even 
the more carnivorous animals are in the habit of devouring 
their own species. Finally, though blood forms the pabu- 
lum of all the animal tissues, and hence closely approaches 
their total composition, still it does not appear to form 
even an advantageous article of food, far less an indispen- 
sable one. 

And while such considerations may suffice to show, that 
there is no true identity between the food and the tissues 
in general, the progress of modern physiological chemistry 
plainly indicates, that an identity of this kind would be 
equally impossible in detail. Thus it is not improbable, 
that the tissues of every individual possess chemical pecu- 
liarities more or less specific to himself. And it is all but 
certain, that the various proximate principles isolated by 
the chemist are not definite combinations of certain ele- 
ments in equivalent proportions — as are the salts, acids, 
and alkalis of the inorganic world — but rather ever- 
varying mixtures. Those various forms of protein which 
it is so convenient to distinguish by the names of albumen, 
fibrin, and casein, may indeed be separated from the tissues 
of animals, and even of vegetables, by the same rough 
processes ; and may therefore respectively exhibit a close 



50 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

resemblance in their composition and properties. But an 
accurate analysis would probably show, that the organic 
substance represented by either of these terms is never 
precisely identical in any two specimens. It is the total 
of a number of constituents, the result of a variety of pro- 
cesses, the end of a serial metamorphosis : — rather than a 
definite and specific compound of carbon, oxygen, hydro- 
gen, and nitrogen, with exact (though minute) quantities 
of salts or their bases. 

And not only is there no identity in the composition of 
the organism and the ingesta, but it would seem that there 
are some tissues of the body which have no constant 
representative in the food : no kindred substance to wl 
their formation can always be referred. Such are 
various tissues thai yield gelatine ; a substance which. 
though it appears largely to escape assimilation when in- 
troduced into the organism from without, is yet constantly 
formed within it, from metamorphoses of other parts i 
substance. (Compare Chapter VI. ) 

The chemistry of nutrition therefore implies neither 
construction, on the one hand, nor identity, on the otl 
but something midway between these two extreme s. [tfl 
forces occupy, so to speak, a debatable ground bet* 
the prehension of old materials, and the formation of new 
ones. And the food submitted to its action is only re- 
quired to pogsesfi such a similarity of composition with 
body, as will concede these limited changes, without imply- 
ing any wider range of metamorphosis. 

An exact definition of the degree oi resemblance tl 
requisite, would be foreign to our present object. Ind< 



CHEMISTRY OF NUTRITIOX. 51 

in the existing state of our knowledge, it is impossible to 
offer any correct and comprehensive view of the nature of 
those metamorphoses, which accompany the digestive act, 
and are bounded by the food and the organism as their 
beginning and end respectively. It is enough to indicate, 
that they appear to be intermediate between the forces of 
chemical affinity on the one hand, and homogeneous and 
heterogeneous adhesion on the other ; and that while they 
are sometimes * akin to the formation of hydrates, they 
occasionally resemble those still more recondite phenomena 
which are concerned in the production of isomeric or iso- 
morphous compounds : — substances which, though identical 
in their composition, offer striking differences in their 
solubility, as well as in many of their chemical properties 
and reactions. 

Such a very limited convertibility of the main compo- 
nents of the food, renders their variety almost as essential, 
as though each different tissue of the body had required 
the entry of its corresponding substance from without. In 
other words, within the range of that chemical parallelism 
just sketched out, the organism demands alimentary com- 
pounds containing all the different ingredients necessary 
to cover its own waste. 

This fact receives a good illustration from that selection 
which the instinct of most persons would impel them to 
make. Left to himself, Man always chooses a mixed diet, 
composed of proper quantities of animal and vegetable, 
of liquid and solid, matters. Nay more, that almost 
equally imperious instinct which urges him to vary his 

* Compare the remarks on the gastric juice in Chapter TV, 
E 2 



52 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

diet, is, though often confounded with the morbid cravings 
of luxury, essentially nothing less than an expression of the 
natural wants of a healthy organism. 

Obscured, however, as these really natural instincts often 
are by the stereotyped tastes and habits of highly artificial 
states of society, we gain a far better insight into the 
proper composition of food, by examining that store of 
nutriment which, in the shape of the yolk of the Bird's 
egg, or the milk of the Mammal, Nature herself provides 
for the maintenance of the young of these classes. Of 
these two substances, the milk is justly regarded as forming 
the very best example of a proper food : — both as regards 
the nature of its several ingredients, and the proportion- in 
which they are mingled with each other. 

Milk. — The alimentary properties of the milk are due to 
the presence of a number of proximate constituents, the 
more important of which may be enumerated as follow-. — 
(1) A protein-compound, casein; (2) a hydro-carbon or 
fat; (3) a hydrate of carbon or sugar; (4) certain salts: 
and (5) the water in which the whole of these materials 
are suspended or dissolved. Of these five groups of sub- 
stances, at least four are indispensable ingredients of every 
proper food. The hydrate of carbon and the hydro-carbon 
are, to some extent, capable of forming substitutes for each 
other. But with this partial exception (an explanation of 
which will be attempted by and by), the absence of any 
one of these constituents, or even its presence in insuffi- 
cient quantity, suffices to destroy the capacity of any par- 
ticular food for maintaining life : so that an animal limited 
to such a diet ultimately dies with appearances of inanition. 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 53 

And a fortiori, the ingestion of but one of these alimen- 
tary ingredients, — such as albumen, fat, or sugar, — is soon 
attended with effects which still more closely resemble 
those of starvation. Such a diet does indeed essentially 
starve the entire organism, even while it supplies some of 
the constituents of its lost substance. For although the 
unchecked waste of the remaining constituents of its mass 
tells upon certain of its textures with greater rapidity and 
energy than on others, still it ultimately involves the 
whole in a common destruction : — a fact which need little 
surprise us, when we recollect the mixed composition of 
the simplest tissues, and the intimate mutual dependence 
of the most distant and isolated parts of the body. 

Constituents of food. — 1. Protein. — The first group, 
consisting of what are called the protein-compounds, in- 
cludes a number of proximate principles, which are de- 
rived from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms of 
nature. The chief of these principles are albumen, fibrin, 
and casein. By digestion in solution of potash, and pre- 
cipitation with an acid, either of these yields a substance 
called pmotein: — a name that alludes to the relation this 
principle is supposed to bear to all the compounds from 
which it is thus obtained. It is regarded as their common 
starting-point (irproTEvco^ primas partes teneo), and most 
essential component. And the slight differences of com- 
position offered by each particular protein-compound, are 
explained as chiefly due to variations in the nature and 
amount of certain collateral ingredients, the addition of 
which to protein imparts the specific characters of albu- 
men, fibrin, or the like. Hence the various protein- com- 

E 3 



54 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

pounds are supposed to differ, not so much in elementary 
composition, as in certain characters which might almost 
be termed morphological : — namely, outward form, physi- 
cal properties, degree of solubility, and the like. 

Such a view of the nature of protein is doubtless open 
to many objections. But without entering on an elaborate 
discussion of these, it may be suggested that the term 
" protein " is almost indispensable for purposes of descrip- 
tion. That certain substances are closely related in com- 
position to each other ; and that they yield, to such and 
such treatment, an^analogous (if not identical) substance : — 
this is all which we can affirm, or need accept* with req 
to the disputed chemistry of protein. And bo long 
accept such a doctrine with the cautions implied h< re and 
elsewhere, it is difficult to sec what disadvantag 
follow from its use. The less so, that some term mu 
necessity be adopted to express wh - to be, ch 

cally as well as logically, the gi nti8 of the Bevera] 
constituted by albumen, fibrin, casein, &C; 

The exact process by which one of these bo called protein- 
compounds undergoes conversion into another is still a 
complete mystery. But that such cha nstantly 

obtain in the living organism, cannot be doubted. 
hence, while the quantity of albumen in the animal fa 
and the constancy with which it is present, ap- 
proximate principle the leading position in the al 
group of proteinous substances, it is on its generic, and 
not on its specific, properties that our attention ought 
chiefly to be fixed. 

The protein of the food may be regarded as its 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 55 

essential constituent. The reason why such an importance 
is ascribed to it becomes sufficiently evident, when we 
compare its composition with that of the body which it is 
intended to nourish. The highly azotised constitution it 
possesses (C 547 +H6-8 + N 14-2 + 24-3 = 100) 
closely approaches that of the solids of the organism gene- 
rally. And it shows an equally important relation to most 
of the tissues in detail. It forms a large constituent of 
the blood ; and therefore of the plastic nutritional fluid 
which exsudes directly from this fluid. It is the main com- 
ponent of the muscles which execute the various move- 
ments of the body. It is an equally important ingredient 
in the tissues of both the central and peripheric parts of 
the nervous system. It is probably the source of the 
gelatinous * tissues ; which, in the herbivorous animal, can 
only be derived from a kind of degradation or regressive 
metamorphosis of its albuminous substances. And, finally, 
its large amount in the structures of the foetus proves that 
it is just as important to the evolution and growth of the 
animal, as it is to its maintenance. In short, in protein 
and its various kindred substances, we recognise a prox- 
imate principle, which is essential to all the structures and 
functions, forms the predominant solid ingredient of many 
.of the tissues; and is, in one word, the chief substantive 
agent of the chemistry of Life. 

The quantity of protein necessary for the proper main- 

* Ignorant as we are, both of the nature of this metamorphosis, and of the 
various stages through which it is conducted, there are reasons for con- 
jecturing that the formation of the chondrin radicle generally precedes that 
of the substance (" collagen ") which yields gelatine by boiling, 

E 4 



56 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

tenance of the healthy animal can only be estimated from 
indirect and approximate calculations. 

In human milk, the albuminous compounds are chiefly 
represented by casein, which forms about 3J per cent, of 
its total quantity. But we can scarcely guess how much 
milk is daily consumed by the sacking animal, or what 
proportion this amount bears to the weight of its whole 
body. And we are justified in assuming, that a large 
fraction of the protein thus introduced into the system, 
is applied to exigencies of growth and development which 
have little or no place in the adult animal. 

Assuming an exact maintenance of the adult organism, 
without increase or decrease, we might expect that an 
examination of its various azotised excretions would teach 
us how much nitrogen had been discharged from the 
system within a given time : and hence that, by comparing 
this quantity with the known elementary composition of 
protein, we might be enabled to calculate how large a 
quantity of the azotised constituent of the food ought to 
be added to the system, in order to replace its daily 
loss. 

But here we are met by a difficulty connected with the 
process of nutrition itself: with that chain of events of 
which food and waste constitute only the extreme links. 
The amount of nitrogen given off by the body does not 
depend solely upon the quantity excreted by its waste, 
but also varies in close correspondence with the quantity 
taken in its food. It is therefore greater in carniver 
and less in herbivorous, animals. 

Hence the true or essential waste of the organism, in 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 57 

respect of this constituent, can only be determined from 
an analysis of the excretions of animals which have been 
kept for a day or two, either without food, or on a diet 
altogether devoid of nitrogen. In both cases the results 
are the same. The nitrogen of the egesta drops to a 
certain minimum ; at which it remains for a considerable 
period. 

The quantity of nitrogen evolved by the lungs and skin 
is at any rate so small, as scarcely to form an important 
element of calculation. And even the larger quantity 
excreted in the biliary resin, hardly deserves notice. It 
is in the uric acid, and above all in the urea, of the renal 
secretion, that this element is chiefly dismissed from the 
body as an effete compound. And hence it is from the 
urea found in such experiments that we may best deduce 
the probable rate of daily waste in the albuminous tissues ; 
and the corresponding quantity of protein which therefore 
has to be supplied in the daily food.* 

From observations of this kind on the human subject, we 
may infer that, in Man, the albuminous substances of the 
adult organism undergo a necessary loss of about If ounces 
daily ; — a quantity which corresponds to scarcely more 
than yy^th of the weight of the body. While if we 
suppose that a new-born infant, weighing six or seven 
pounds, consumes daily about ten or twelve ounces of 
milk, containing 3^ per cent, of casein, the quantity of 
protein thus introduced into its alimentary canal would 
amount to the much larger proportion of about -2^-5 th of 
its total bodily mass. 

* Compare pp. 13, 19. 



58 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

The larger proportion of albumen thus consumed by 
the infant probably depends upon at least two causes. 
As a smaller * animal, it is subject to a more energetic 
waste of substance. And as a growing animal, it not only 
lays aside in its body a constant surplus of its income 
over its waste ; but possibly undergoes a more active 
metamorphosis, which still further increases the proportion 
of its effete materials. 

But, apart from the influence of age or size, there is 
no doubt that a careful comparison of the azotised ingesta 
and er/esta would always show a marked disproportion 
between the two. There are indeed obvious reason.--, 
why the nitrogenous constituent of any suitable food 
should always greatly exceed that quantity which is 
required by the strict exigencies of the organism. A 
considerable proportion of the casein contained in the 
milk taken by the sucking-child, is often found to 
through the alimentary canal without being absorbed into 
the blood. And in the case of many other varieties of 
food, the insoluble state of the protein-compounds actually 
present f affords a still greater obstacle to their absorption. 

* From researches by Frerichs, Lehmann. Bidder. Schmidt. Boussing 
Valentin, and others, we may estimate the normal daily waste of albu- 
minous compounds, relatively to the whole body, in the undermentioned 
animals, as follows : — Mouse, ^th ; Rabbit, y^th ; Cat. jf^th ; Dog, ^th ; 
INIan (as above )~- 5 ^th ; Horse, y^tli. 

•f It is thus that I should explain the above estimate of the proportionate 
waste of the albuminous substances of the Horse ; an estimate founded, to 
the best of my recollection, solely on the proteinosis ingredients of its daily 
food, as calculated by Boussingault. It can hardly be doubted that a I 
proportion of these constituents, as they exist in hay. or even in corn, I 
be so far insoluble as to escape digestion, and escape in the excrement. 
Hence it is possible that the above fraction ought to be - A for 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 59 

In a proper mixed diet, however, we may detect some 
approximation between the presumable gain and loss. 
Thus the daily rations * of the British soldier on home 
service include little more than five ounces of albuminous 
substance ; — a quantity which is therefore about thrice 
the amount of this material, which the necessary waste of 
his body probably dismisses from his system within the 
same period of time. 

2. The next group of alimentary substances is that of 
the fats, the composition of which has led to their re- 
ceiving the generic name of hydro-carbons. They are 
found in both animal and vegetable food. In the milk, 
they are represented by its butter ; the proportion of which 
in human milk, amounts on an average to about 3 J per 
cent. 

The great variety of different alimentary substances of 
this kind is such as to preclude even their enumeration. 
The most important are stearin, elain, and margarin. 
The composition of these three fats may be generally 
stated as almost corresponding to the chemical equivalents 
of carbon and hydrogen ; or, more exactly, to ten atoms 
of each of these elements, minus one of hydrogen, 
and plus one of oxygen (C 10 H 9 0; or C 79 + H 11 "4 
+ 9-6 = 100). 

The uses sustained in the organism by these fatty consti- 
tuents of the food are easily indicated as respects their larger 
and more general relations, difficult as it may be to follow 

one (e, g. -^^ to ^q), in closer accordance with the above law relative to 
the bulk of the animal, 
* See Appendix* 



60 THE NATUEE OF FOOD. 

them into all their details. Thus, the fat of the body, 
which is arranged as a thick layer (j/anniculus adiposus) 
placed immediately beneath the skin and on the muscles, 
also involves the various groups of muscles, as well as some 
of the more important viscera, in special coverings of adipose 
tissue ; coverings which, by their properties as bad con- 
ductors of heat, materially aid in preserving the uniform 
and warm temperature essential to the functions of the 
higher animals. Equally obvious is the protection the 
adipose tissue affords to the mechanical integrity of many 
external and internal structures ; which, as in the case of 
the breast and the kidney, are thus surrounded by millions 
of tough elastic sacs filled with oily liquid — of oil cushi 
(so to speak) imbedded in areolar tissue. Both of these 
purposes might doubtless be accomplished without in- 
volving any rapid waste and replacement of the fatty 
materials themselves. But the vast quantity of fatty 
matter which enters into the composition of the nervous 
system, and the primary importance of this delicate and 
energetic or^an to the maintenance of life, entitle ua 
infer, that its functions imply such a metamorphose 
its substance, as can only be sustained by the continual 
supply of new materials to replace those rendered effete. 
Nor is it improbable that the delicacy of these metamor- 
phoses so far transcends their amount, as that fatty sub- 
stances may be converted by them into compounds really 
effete for the nervous centres, though still retaining 
sufficient of their original fatty composition to subs* 
the lower purposes of adipose tissue in the system 
large. The numerical phenomena of nutrition further 



ALIMENTAKY CONSTITUENTS. 61 

show, that the process of respiration is constantly dismissing 
from the body an amount of carbonic acid, the proportion 
of which to the azotised egesta proves that it must have 
been derived more or less directly from an oxidation of 
the fatty, as well as of the albuminous, tissues. 

The quantity of fatty matter contained in the healthy 
organism strongly confirms all these views; and thus 
helps to account for its dietetic importance. For, in- 
cluding all their varieties in the tissues just alluded to, 
we can hardly estimate the total hydro-carbons of the 
human body at less than ^th or ^-th of its weight. And 
since they scarcely form -s^-th part of the blood, it 
follows, that even assuming the total quantity of this 
nutrient fluid to equal -^th of the corporeal weight, its 
fatty constituents amount to little more than -3-50-th or 
Q-i-Q-th of the various fats which are deposited in the 
central and peripheric structures of the nervous system, 
and are stored up in the adipose cells of other parts of 
the body. Such an estimate further entitles us to con- 
jecture, not only that the fat taken up at any one time 
by the digestive organs is limited to a very small quantity ; 
but also, that it either undergoes some important meta- 
morphoses before reaching the general mass of the blood, 
or is very rapidly eliminated from this fluid.* 

3. The hydrates of carbon form a class of nutritional 
substances, the elementary composition of which is still 
more exactly indicated by their name. In other words, 
they consist of carbon, united with hydrogen and oxygen 
in those equivalent proportions of these two latter elements 

* Compare p. 1 1. 



62 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

which are necessary for the formation of water (C 12 H ]2 
12 ). This group is a very large one : and includes, not 
only the various forms of cane, grape, and milk sugar, but 
a number of kindred substances ; — such as dextrin, gum, 
cellulose, inosit, and, especially, starch. All of these 
organic principles, however various their physical pro- 
perties, have nevertheless the same chemical composition. 
And many of them are easily converted into grape sugar ; 
either by the excitement of a limited metamorphosis by 
an azotised ferment, or by exposure to the action of 
dilute acids. 

The sugary ingredient of the human milk forms about 
5\ per cent, of its quantity; and is the only representative 
of the hydrates of carbon which it contains. 

The average amount of the substances belonging to 
this and the preceding group of alimentary constituents 
will of course vary greatly in different kinds of food. 
Speaking generally, however, each of these two 
predominates by turns in the food derived by Man from 
the two kingdoms of nature. Thus while the hydro- 
carbons are chiefly derived from the fat of animal food, 
the hydrates of carbon are represented even more ex- 
clusively by the starch and sugar of vegetable f 
But, in strictness, no such marked difference can actually 
be made out between the two kinds of food in this respect. 
The milk, the liver, and even the blood of the animal, 
all contain sugar : while inosit, a substance closely allied 
to sugar, and indeed, identical with it in composition, 
forms an important constituent of the various muscles. 
Conversely, not only do many plants contain large quan- 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 63 

tities of oily matter stored up in various parts of their 
tissues, but even the seeds of those Cerealia, which form 
the best vegetable diet, present an amount of fat ranging 
from '2 to 2 per cent. 

The purposes fulfilled by these hydrates of carbon in 
the animal economy, offer a marked contrast to those 
subserved by the two previous groups. The proteinous 
compounds furnish what is eminently the basis of the 
organism ; — the plasma from which are developed the 
blood and the tissues. They are thus histogenetic and 
hcemagenetic, as the phrase is. The fatty matters of the 
body not only form a large constituent of the ever active 
nervous substance, but are also retained and stored up in 
the more inert and passive form of adipose tissue. While 
the grape-sugar, into which the various hydrates of carbon of 
the food are all finally converted, seems not to undergo any 
such assimilative process as permits it to enter largely into 
the composition of the tissues, and to assume, in so far, 
a permanent form in the body, but is, to all appearance, 
rapidly eliminated from the blood. In what shape, or 
after what metamorphoses, it leaves this fluid, is at present 
uncertain. It is, however, probable, that like the hydro- 
carbons, these hydrates of carbon are essentially a species 
of fuel for that process of calorific combustion, which 
pervades the whole body, and which discharges its re- 
sulting carbonic acid by means of the respiratory function. 
And Liebig has adduced numerical data from the fattening 
of animals, which lead him to suppose, that these sub- 
stances are also capable of undergoing such a process of 
de-oxidation, as converts them into fat, and thus enables 



C4 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

them to augment the adipose tissue. But this view rests 
on what are at present very insufficient foundations * : 
and is curiously contrasted with that oxidation f of hydro- 
carbons into sugar^ or some kindred substance, which the 
researches of various recent observers seem to indicate as 
one of the chief functions of the liver.J 

4. The importance of the water of the food is such a> 
justly entitles this liquid to the rank of a fourth alimentary 
constituent. For it forms about four-fifths of the entire 
corporeal mass : and undergoes, at the various excretory 
surfaces of the skin, the lungs, and the kidneys, a con- 
tinual expenditure ; the replacement of which is obviously 
necessary to the maintenance of the proper composition 
of the body. 

* The increase of fatty matter supposed to have been derived from tl 
hydrates was calculated by subtracting the fat added in the vegetable 

food from the increase of the animal's weight : this BUiplue 

as due to augmented adipose tissue. Hence any error in estimating the 

fatty constituent of this food on the one hand, or any neglect to calculate 

the watery and proteinous constituents of the increased adi 

the other, would partially account for the difference L And it 

seems not unlikely that both of these inaccuracies actually occurred in these 

observations. 

f Assuming that such a metamorphosis really obtained, it would not be 
difficult to explain most of Liebig's results without supposing any such 
direct metamorphosis of starch into fat as that above alluded to. For it 
might well be expected that the presence of an excess of sugar in the liver 
would diminish the energy of this act : in other words, that an exe 
the product would lessen the activity oi the process. Thus the copious 
ingestion of sugar might check its formation, as well as diminish the me- 
tamorphosis of the fat supplied to the liver in the portal blood. And 
this retention of the fatty form might not only affect the hydro-carbons 
of the food, but also those which are possibly developed in the org... 
from its own proteinous constituents. 

+ Compare the remarks on the liver, in Chapter V. 



ALIMEXTAEY CONSTITUENTS. 65 

The way in which this large aqueous constituent fa- 
cilitates the action of the several organs is not very difficult 
to conjecture. Their merely physical properties of hard- 
ness, flexibility, and the like, often seem greatly influenced 
by the quantity of the watery ingredient which they 
contain. And their more recondite vital properties seem 
quite as immediately under its influence. Thus not only 
do its solvent powers appear to be eminently useful in 
furthering the minute division, and the local transfer, of 
various organic substances, but we are justified in believing 
that it gives a specific chemical assistance to many of those 
processes of metamorphosis which are so intimately con- 
nected with Life. In both of these respects it seems 
specially to aid the function of digestion. Besides, that 
act of absorption which conveys the dissolved con- 
tents of the alimentary canal into the surrounding veins, 
is greatly facilitated by the heightened diffusive energy 
which the low specific gravity of water enables it to 
impart to the fluids with which it has been mixed. And 
finally, the use of water in relation to the opposite ex- 
treme of nutrition — namely, to excretion — may be well 
exemplified by the urine; a poisonous product which is 
continually being washed out of the system, through the 
instrumentality of a stream of this universal solvent. 

The details of death by thirst afford a fearful com- 
mentary on the above remarks ; — although, from reasons 
which will presently be mentioned, it is obvious that even 
these cases rarely afford us examples of the complete 
exclusion of all entry of water from without the body. 
After a period of agonising thirst, the most distressing 

F 



66 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

symptoms of which seem referrible to the dry and in- 
flamed throat and fauces, the deficiency of water is gradu- 
ally revealed by a diminution — which is at last almost 
a suppression — of the various secretions that normally 
contain a large proportion of this liquid : namely, the 
sweat, the urine, and the faeces. Increasing muscular 
debility accompanies this change ; and is soon followed by 
delirium and coma, ending in death. 

And, conversely, the benefits afforded by water seem to 
receive an almost paradoxical illustration from its effects 
in the opposite states of starvation and of fattening. 
Thus, as regards the latter process, animals are stated to 
fatten much more easily and quickly when allowed the 
free ingestion of this liquid. And Becquerel and Leh- 
mann state that, when water is taken in excessive quantity, 
an increased amount of urea is excreted from the system 
of the healthy human subject.* While the researches of 
Bidder and Schmidt f show that, even after the withdrawal 
of all other ingesta, the copious use of water concedes to 
the starving animal a longer duration of life ; — diminish- 
ing not only the waste of its protein-compounds, but 
those collateral results of its vital processes, which are 
exemplified by the excretion of urea, carbonic acid, and 
salts. 

Hence water, which forms about 85 per cent, of the 
milk, is an universal constituent of the food of animals : 
and varies only in the proportion which its amount bears 

* An effect which is partially aseribable to its favouring the absorption 
of a larger quantity of protein from the same amount of food. 

t Die Verdawungssaefte and der StonVechsel. Leipzig. 18o2. p. 344. 



ALIMENTARY CONSTITUENTS. 67 

to that of the solid ingredients mixed with it, or dissolved 
in it. In some of the lowest forms of animal life, its 
relative amount is so great, that the remainder of the 
food is only present in the state of a very dilute solution. 
In certain aquatic creatures of this kind, the medium 
around the animal seems to form such a dilute alimentary 
solution as only requires an act of absorption at the outer 
surface of the creature's body. And even in the higher 
animals, in whom the other alimentary constituents are 
always taken into a stomach or internal cavity, part of 
the total quantity of water which really accompanies 
them into the system is often introduced by the same 
mode of absorption. So that, although the relative 
amount of water consumed within a given time by the 
organism has probably a definite proportion to the activity 
of the vital processes, the amount of this liquid habitually 
swallowed by any animal is greatly affected by the quantity 
introduced in other ways : namely, by the proportion 
contained in its solid food, the amount formed by the 
combustion of hydrogen in its body, and the quantity 
absorbed by its skin from the vaporous or liquid water 
of the surrounding media. Thus the apparently dry 
food of many Herbivora is explained by the large amount 
of water, which is present as a chemical constituent of 
such food, and which accompanies its few digestible parts 
into the system. And the small amount of drink taken 
by many of the Batrachian reptiles is chiefly due to the 
active tegumentary ingestion last alluded to. 

The quantity of water contained in the various kinds 
of food ordinarily made use of, will be referred to here- 

I 2 



68 THE NATURE OF FOOD. 

after. But we may probably fix its average at about 
75 to 80 per cent, (or about 5 lbs. daily) of the mixed fluid 
and solid food (about 6*5 lbs.) of the human subject. 

5. The salts of the food constitute the fifth and last 
group of its constituents, and that which we may be said 
to know less of than all the others. For, while many 
of the more important salts are easily recognised in the 
ashes of the various fluid and solid aliments in which 
they are usually introduced into the body, still we are 
often at a loss to know the precise state of combination 
in which they are originally present in the food, far more 
than that in which they enter into combination with the 
organism itself. 

In the case of many salts, we can, however, trace the 
actual changes of composition which occur in the organism. 
Thus the salts composed of the various organic acid- 
united with the alkalies, are converted into carbonate-. 
prior to their dismissal from the body in the urine. And 
it seems possible that even the sulphates are occasionally 
decomposed in the alimentary canal ; their sulphuric acid 
being deoxidised into sulphuretted hydrogen, while 
their bases unite with the carbonic acid formed in the 
system. 

Hence, although a careful and repeated analysis of the 
salts contained in the organism arid in its total excretions, 
might afford some clue to the qualities and quantities 
the salts which ought to be introduced in the food, it 
would not by any means represent the details of these 
demands. While it is hardly necessary to add that no 
such series of examinations has ever vet been made : and 



ALTMENTABY CONSTITUENTS. 69 

that, however carefully conducted, it might easily over- 
look very small quantities of important ingredients. 
Many discrepancies, however, it would probably clear up ; 
such as why animals which in one region seem indifferent 
to salt, in others seek it with the greatest avidity ; — why 
the diet which produces scurvy in one person, leaves 
another little affected ; — or, for example, why the roving 
population of the South American Pampas can maintain 
a robust health on the fresh meat of the wild cattle which 
range these plains ; while an apparently similar diet on 
the flesh of tame cattle has been known to decimate a 
regiment of English soldiers. 

The more essential salts of the food seem to be the 
chlorides and phosphates of the alkalies; and especially, 
the chloride of sodium, and the phosphate of soda. Lime 
and iron are also important bases. In healthy human 
milk, the salts amount to about 2 parts per 1000. Of 
these about -J-rd seem to be soluble ; consisting chiefly of 
the chlorides of potassium and sodium (as 3 to 1 respec- 
tively) ; and of phosphate, sulphate, and even carbonate 
of these bases in similar proportions. The insoluble salts 
are chiefly tribasic phosphates of lime and magnesia (as 
8 to 1 respectively) ; the large quantities of which are 
doubtless connected with the exigencies of ossification in 
the foetus. 



F3 



70 



CHAP. III. 

DIGESTION. — ITS FIRST STAGE. 

Definition and Summary of the Process. — Mastication. — Insalivation. — 
Salivary Glands. — Their Structure. — Secretion. — Physical and Che- 
mical Properties of Saliva. — Its Quantity. — Stimulants of its Flow. — 
Its Action ; mechanical, general, and special Functions. — Influence of 
its various Sources. — Relation to the Stomach and its Secretion. — 
Deglutition : in the Pharynx — in the (Esophagus — at the Cardia. 

The food, of which the general composition was briefly 
described in the foregoing chapter, undergoes in the in- 
terior of the body a series of changes which fit it for ab- 
sorption into the vessels. The aggregate of these changes 
we term digestion; a word which, — originally used only 
to signify a supposed arrangement, or setting in order, 
of the various ingredients of the food prior to their H con- 
coction" or seething together into an uniform liquid, — 
is now taken to mean the whole process which conducts 
nutriment from the exterior of the body into the veins and 
lacteals ; through which it passes to traverse the lungs 
and the heart, to be thence propelled into the arteries, 
and so to reach the mass of blood contained in the 
capillaries. 

The highest powers of our microscopes show that neither 
of these two classes of absorbent vessels of the dig 
tive canal — veins and lacteals — possess any pores ca- 
pable of directly receiving solid particles of appreciable 



SUMMAEY OF DIGESTION. 7i 

dimensions. Hence in the mixture of solids and liquids 
which forms the food, the absorption of the nutritious 
materials of the former class of substances requires the 
aid of various processes, such as may confer on them the 
liquid form. And even those alimentary substances 
originally liquid sometimes require a further change. 

The total act of digestion may therefore be summed up 
as implying — (1.) The minute division of the food. (2.) Its 
successive exposure to the action of a series of solvents, 
each of which is destined to dissolve certain of its in- 
gredients. (3.) Its subjection to a series of metamorphoses, 
all of which are strictly limited to certain degrees of 
decomposition, any progress beyond which is subversive of 
digestion, and therefore, to however small an extent, of 
health itself. But the digestive canal is also, like most 
other organs, in some degree self-regulative : and is thus 
the seat of (4.) an action which checks or arrests all such 
excess of digestion as would injure the organism by flood- 
ing the vessels with an injurious superfluity of nutritious 
matters. And (5.) the necessity of removing from the canal 
the insoluble and useless ingredients of even the purest 
food, seems to suggest the intercalation, so to speak, of the 
organs of various excretions, some of which also subserve 
other purposes prior to their own extrusion from the body ; 
facilitating or checking the metamorphoses of the food, or 
balancing an undue plethora by a converse increase in 
the rapidity of their own outflow, or in the quantity of 
their own mass. 

Mastication is the first action to which the food is 
submitted, The anterior or cutting teeth having severed 

P 4 



72 DIGESTION. 

a morsel of food, the tongue, which is endowed with an 
exquisite sense of touch at its surface, and with a cor- 
respondingly delicate and complex faculty of movement 
as the office of its muscular mass, now places the food, 
supposing its consistence to require mastication, between 
some of the posterior or grinding teeth. Eetained be- 
tween the apposed surfaces of these by the tongue in- 
ternally, and the muscular wall of the cheek externally ; 
and triturated by a double movement (antero-posterior and 
lateral) of the teeth on each other, in the horizontal 
plane, at the same time that it is also crushed by the 
opposition and compression of the jaws in the vertical 
plane, the food is rapidly reduced to a minutely divided 
state. The perpetual changes of position which aid this 
action are also made use of to mix with the food a variable 
quantity of a liquid poured largely into the mouth by 
various secreting organs, the salivary glands. 

Insalivation, as this act of admixture is termed, con- 
stitutes an important element of the digestive procesa 
Hence the structures and secretions which effect it are 
correspondingly numerous and energetic. Three large 
glands on each side: — the parotid, between the jaw and 
ear; the sub-maxillary, behind and below the jaw, where 
it adjoins the neck ; and the sublingual, visible by raising 
the tip of the tongue, as a crescentic swelling in front of 
this organ — constitute the chief sources of this secretion. 
In addition, however, to these, there are numerous smaller 
glands, termed conglobate, from their ordinary shape, 
and of diameters varying from £rd to 2 or 2i lines, 
which raise the surface of the mucous membrane lining 



I^SALIVATIOX. 



73 



the mouth [into little swellings, named, according to 
their situation, buccal, lingual, labial, and palatine glands. 



Fie. 1. 




Conglobate oral gland, magnified 50 diameters. {After Koelliker.) 

a, Areolar investment ; b, efferent duct ; c, gland- vesicles ; d, ducts of the 
lobules. 

The structure of all these glands is comparatively 
uniform. 

The duct or canal by which each opens into the interior 
of the mouth is of a width proportionate, in the main, 
to the total bulk of the gland of which it forms the 
conduit, and to that stream of secretion which it there- 
fore, at the period of greatest activity, has to convey. Its 



74 DIGESTION. 

length, for reasons equally obvious, varies according to 
the distance to which its orifice in the mouth is removed 
from the gland itself. But in spite of the great variations 
thus permitted, the essential structure of all the salivary 
glands is identical. Traced backwards from its terminal 
orifice, each has a duct, the thick wall of which perforates 
the mucous membrane by what is, in all but the smallest 
specimens, a tube formed of muscular and elastic tissue. 
Within this tube is enclosed a thin structureless membrane 
lined by epithelial cells, possessing characters closely ap- 
proaching those of the cells of the mucous surface on 
which it opens. By repeated divisions, which are mostly 
bifurcations, the duct continually diminishes in its dia- 
meter as it increases in distance from its orifice, until 
finally its ultimate branches, reduced to a diameter of 

Fig. 2. 




Diagram of two ducts of a lobule. {After Kocttiker.) 

a, Efferent duct of lobule ; bb, side branches ; c, vesicles in situ ; d, the 
same separated, and the duct unfolded. 

about Y^th of an inch, suddenly expand into a number 
of crypts of about 1£ times this size. The inner sur- 
face of the ramified duct is clothed with a flat polygonal 
tessellated epithelium of small size (^Vo thincl1 dieter), 
forming but a single layer. (Fig. 3.) This cell-growth, 



SALIVARY GLANDS. 76 

into which the larger coarser epithelium of the oral cavity 
merges at a short distance from the commencement of 
the duct, is of exceedingly delicate structure, each of its 
nucleated particles being exclusively occupied by a faintly 
granular and albuminous liquid. 

A few allusions to the vascular supply, and to the mecha- 
nical arrangement, of these branched ducts may complete 
this brief notice of the structure of the salivary glands. 
Wrapped in areolar tissue (which here, as elsewhere 
throughout the body, subserves the double purpose of a 
physical protection to the vessels and nerves, and a means 

Fig. 3. 




Two vesicles of a conglobate oral gland, magnified 300 diameters. (After 

Koelliker.) 

a, Basement membrane ; b, epithelium, as seen in transverse section ; 
c, from the surface. 

of convoying and attaching them to the organs they 
supply), the chief differences between the largest and 
smallest of these salivary glands, — between the massy and 
irregular parotid, and a buccal gland scarcely larger than 
an ordinary millet-seed, — relate to the number of packages, 
so to speak, into which the gland is divisible, and to the 
amount and complexity of the areolar envelopes thus 



76 DIGESTION. 

required for its total mass. In the larger glands, the 
terminal dilatations of the ducts can hardly be extricated or 
unravelled from out of their dense sheaths of areolar tissue. 
But the dilatations themselves, when thus exposed, permit 
their apposed surfaces to be seen in the shape of a cluster 
of spherical or irregularly polyhedral vesicles, something 
like a bunch of grapes. And the circumstance that each 
cluster of adjacent vesicles is packed in its own special layer 
of connective tissue, as well as supplied by its own vessels, 
and can thus be isolated as an egg-shaped lobule of about 
§ rds by -±-rd of a line in size, completes the likeness to such 
an independent bunch of acini or grapes. Adjacent bun- 
ches or clusters, however, are again packed and swathed into 
still larger masses by layers of areolar tissue thrown around 
the externa] or unopposed surfaces of the smaller or primary 
bunches ; these, again, are aggregated by other and more 
external investments into still larger masses ; thus consti- 
tuting primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, &c- lobules 
of the gland : the last or greatest of which aggregations 
as it were, finally built up into the total mass of the large 
salivary gland by a common envelope of similar connective 
tissue, which merges, by an increasing laxity of its meshes, 
into the ordinary areolar structure in which the gland is 
imbedded. The smaller size, and the less exposed position, 
of the sub-mucous conglobate glands reduce these repeated 
sheathings to two or three only ; and even these are of a 
softness and delicacy consonant with the greater delicacy 
and moisture of all their tissues, as shown by ordinary 
dissection, — a delicacy which, for the most part, concurs 
with such a situation as well shields them from all ordis 



SALIVA. 



77 



mechanical injury. The capillaries which unite the small 
arteries and veins of each primary cluster or lobule sur- 
round the limitary membrane of each terminal acinus with 
three or four loops of variable shape and size, analogous in 

Fig. 4. 




Capillaries of a lobule, magnified 80 diameters* 

arrangement to those which supply the vesicles of the 
adipose tissue. It may be added, that each class of glands 
has its peculiarities of colour and consistence, which, unlike 
its microscopic structure, readily distinguish it from all 
others, and are attributable in great part to the nature and 
amount of its vascular and areolar constituents. 

The secretions of all these glands are mixed together in 

* From Dr. Hyde Salter's Essay, " Pancreas," in the " Cyclopsedia of 
Anatomv." 



78 DIGESTION. 

the mouth to form the saliva or spittle, which is added to 
the food in the act of mastication or chewing. But it is 
probable that the products of the two classes of salivary 
glands — the sub-mucous or racemous, on the one hand, 
and the proper salivary (parotid, sub-maxillary, and sub- 
lingual) on the other — differ from each other in some im- 
portant particulars. 

The secretion of the smaller glands — the oral secretion, 
as we may term it — is but scanty in amount, probably 
not exceeding three or four ounces in 24 hours. Essen- 
tially structureless, it usually contains a variable admix- 
ture of epithelial scales derived from the surface of the 
mucous membrane of the mouth, with a few oval cyto- 
blasts or cells, referable to the deeper or younger layers of 
the same epithelial growth, from which they casually abort 
or are abraded. It is a transparent, yellow, viscid, frothy 
liquid, which contains about one per cent, of solid ingre- 
dients, and has a distinctly alkaline reaction. Of the dry 
residue left by its evaporation at a low temperature, 
about -^th is an extractive compound soluble in alcohol ; 
and rather less than frds consists of salts, among which 
the chlorides of potassium and sodium, and the phosphate 
of soda, make up the larger part (87 per cent. ) 

The secretions of the conglomerate or proper salivary 
glands are more alkaline, as well as more copious and 
watery than the preceding* : in other words, they have a 
smaller specific gravity (about 1004) and dry residue 

* It is probable that this concentrated character of the oral mucus is 
partially ascribable to a re-absorption of some of its watery ingredient 
after its secretion, 






SALIVA. 79 

(about 5 and 7 parts per 1000 in the case of the parotid 
and sub-maxillary respectively). Of this solid part, about 
one-third is organic; the remainder consisting of salts, 
among which saline constituents the carbonate of lime * 
often forms one-fifth to one-third ; the remainder being 
chlorides of the alkalies, and the sulpho-cyanide of potas- 
sium, or rhodankalium, as it is sometimes termed. The 
sub-maxillary gland appears to furnish a denser and more 
potent secretion than the larger parotid. 

That mixed secretion of all these structures which 
forms the ordinary spittle, will of course vary in com- 
position according to the share furnished by the several 
glands. In the human subject, its specific gravity, on 
an average about 1008, corresponds with a dry residue 
forming about 7 parts in the 1000 ; and composed, it 
would seem, pretty equally of a soluble organic substance, 
salts, and admixed epithelium. Contrasting this com- 
position with that of the saliva of the dog, it would 
appear that the spittle of Man is more dilute, or watery 
(as 10 to 7) ; that it contains much more casual epithelium ; 
and lastly, that, as regards its salts, it includes far more 
phosphates, and less chlorides. 

The alkaline reaction of the spittle is subject to con- 
siderable range in different individuals, even during 
perfect health. It especially varies, however, with the 
condition of the salivary organs; being most alkaline 
when these are excited by the presence of food, and by the 
act of mastication, to pour out their secretions in large 

* Perhaps formed by a decomposition of the carbonate of soda of the 
original secretion by its calcareous salts. 



80 DIGESTION. 

quantity. It also varies materially with the existing 
condition of the health. Wh ether secondary or otherwise, 
a kind of lactic fermentation of the saliva has been noticed 
by me for some years past as no very uncommon result 
of its being kept a few hours at a heat of 100° Fahr.* 
And a variety of morbid states of the salivary organs, 
teeth, gums, and stomach, as well as of the other parts 
of the digestive canal, may give rise to an abnormal 
acidity of the mixed secretion. 

The minute proportion of the sulpho-cyanide of potassium 
(according to Bidder and Schmidt, less than one part in 
16,000 of the mixed human saliva) throws great doubt on 
the theory of its specific or characteristic share in the sali- 
vary function. It appears to be contained chiefly, if not 
exclusively, in the secretion of the parotid. The soluble 
organic substance called diastase, or ptyaliu, has far better 
claims to be regarded the chief ingredient of the total 
secretion. It is soluble in water, but precipitable by 
alcohol ; and dries into a yellow, glutinous-looking in 
which analysis shows to have a composition akin to that 
of albumen, but suggests to be (like albumen itself) a 
mixture of several ingredients in variable proportk 
rather than any single and constant organic compound. 

The quantity of saliva can scarcely be estimated with 
exactness; but may be conjectured as amounting to about 
3 pints in 24 hours. It will naturally vary according to 

* The bearing of this fact on the large proportion which lactic acid 
been alleged to form in the gastric juice, and even on its. possible replace- 
ment of the hydrochloric acid originally present in this secretion, is a 
too large and controversial fitly to enter upon here. (Compare, how, 
the remarks on the gastric juice in the following chapter.) 



SECRETION OF SALIVA. 81 

the idiosyncrasy, health, circumstances, and especially the 
food, of the individual. The large demands made on this 
secretion by chewing a dry biscuit on a hot day, and the con- 
trast of masticating a peach or an apple, suggest their own 
conclusions. Eeduced to figures, however, this contrast 
ranges from an admixture of about 4 per cent, of saliva 
with the fruit, to 150 or even more with the dry bis- 
cuit. Even to juicy and well-cooked meat not less than 
40 or 50 per cent, of saliva is generally added during 
mastication. 

The secretion of saliva, however, not only varies in 
quantity according to the nature of the food, and its re- 
quirements as to salivary admixture, but also remits from 
time to time in correspondence with the state of digestion ; 
so as to contrast an exceedingly copious flow, during the 
ingestion of food, with a scanty moistening of the mouth, 
during the intervals of meals, by a liquid which, in all 
probability, comes chiefly from the oral glands, if not alto- 
gether from these, to the exclusion of the larger secreting 
structures of the parotid and sub-maxillary. As respects the 
mechanism of these fluctuations, the increased salivary 
flow of the digestive act is evidently due to a stimulation 
of the nerves distributed to the various glands concerned : 
the galvanic irritation of the larger of these nerves pro- 
voking a copious flux of saliva, with a pressure upon the 
walls of the corresponding ducts such as has been shown 
by Ludwig greatly to transcend that of the blood-column 
in the carotid artery, as well as in the veins of the gland 
concerned. 

The process by which this stimulation is brought about 

G 



82 DIGESTION. 

offers all those various links which its suitable connection 
with other elements of the digestive act would almost 
seem, a priori, to imply. The recollection, sight, or 
smell of pleasant food constitutes what we may roughly 
term a cerebral stimulus ; which, obviously reflex in its 
course from the eye or nose to the centre of perception 
in the two latter cases, is, perhaps for the sake of con- 
venience rather than accuracy, regarded in the first 
emotional and efferent only. Mastication and speech, 
again, which visibly further the flow of saliva, are by some 
supposed not to increase secretion, but only mechanically 
to assist the emptying of the ducts. But the large and 
continuous flux sometimes witnessed as the result of con- 
tinuous speaking shows that secretion itself is often — 
perhaps generally — augmented by this motive stimulation, 
if we may use such a phra0& The oral stimulus of the 
ingestion of food is both a more natural and effective 
stimulation, and a more strictly reflex phenomenon. 
How little, however, the sensation which for obvi 
purposes is usually associated with the afferent stage of 
this act, is necessary or essential to it, may be illus- 
trated by the well-known experiment of Beaumont, Blond- 
lot, and others on the living body: where the intro- 
duction of food through a fistulous opening into the 
stomach has been instantly followed by a copious secre- 
tion of saliva, even though the entry of the food into this 
insensible organ has been managed quite unconsciously to 
the animal itself. 

The action of the saliva is partly mechanical. Adding 
to the food a viscid liquid admirably adapted for its dilu- 



ACTION OF SALIVA. 83 

tion and moisture, it thus greatly reduces the friction 
which the mastication or minute division of the alimentary- 
morsel would otherwise inevitably imply ; at the same time 
that it doubtless inaugurates the general process of digestion 
by a scanty, but genuine, solution of all the more soluble 
constituents of the food. To this, its casual and interrupted 
office, we may also add another, which, though in some 
respects mechanical, has yet a profound physiological im- 
portance, both as regards digestion and the organism at 
large: — namely, that the saliva constitutes part of a vast 
stream of liquid, which, poured into the upper part of the 
alimentary canal day by day, to undergo a re-absorption as 
regards the greater part of its bulk in the succeeding seg- 
ments, after more or less of change during its transit, con- 
stitutes a kind of off-shoot of the general circulation, such 
as must in itself materially aid and modify the general 
current of blood toward the capillaries from whence it is 
poured out. Nor can it be doubted, that the large salivary 
contribution to this stream must especially modify those 
secretions with which it is first mixed in the stomach and 
intestine, as well as influence the liver, and the portal blood 
sent to this organ ; — the goal, and the pathway, respectively, 
of the re-absorbed constituents of the saliva. 

The more specific function of the saliva consists in the 
conversion of the starch of the food into sugar, as the first 
step towards its assimilation and absorption into the body. 
Operative chemistry has longtaught us the facility with which 
various re-agents effect this change out of the body ; and has 
especially shown us how — under the influence of dilute acids, 
decomposing animal matter, warmth,, and moisture — starch. 

G 2 



84 DIGESTION. 

and various substances of allied composition undergo the 
metamorphosis (little more, we may conjecture, than a re- 
arrangement or new grouping of their atoms) necessary 
for the conversion of these forms of hydrate of carbon* into 
the higher and more useful state of grape sugar. And 
considering the rapidity with which decomposition is 
set up in most animal secretions and tissues when with- 
drawn from the influences of the living organism, and 
subjected in their natural or wet state to a blood-heat of 
103°Fahr., it is not surprising to find that there are many 
animal fluids and solids which, under such circumstao 
can effect this change. The distinction, however, which 
entitles us to regard the conversion of starch into sugar as 
constituting a more special function of the salivary >t-cre- 
tion, is simple and conclusive. The change brought 
about by saliva is rapid, intense, and unattended by putre- 
faction ; so that a few seconds often suffice to deprive a 
solution of starch of all power of reaction to the delicate 
test of iodine. And with the exception of the pancreas 
and the glands of Brunnerf, no other tissue or secrttiuii of 
the body seems at all to approach the rapidity and potency 
of the salivary glands or the saliva respectively, in effect- 
ing this metamorphosis. 

The mixture of secretions, however, seems to be so far 
essential, as that the larger salivary glands alone would 
scarcely furnish a saliva of sufficient energy. Indeed, some 
observers regard the oral mucus as quite indispensable to 
an active metamorphosis of starch. Certainly, there are 

* See p. Gl. j See Chapter V. 



DEGLUTITION. 85 

various young Mammals in whose saliva such a power of 
conversion seems little developed soon after birth. This 
appears especially to hold good of the parotid gland. 

It does not appear that the gastric juice influences the 
saliva, save by the lowering effect of dilution. So little 
sugar, however, can generally be found in the stomach when 
occupied by starchy food, that, in the absence of any better 
explanation, we are fain to suppose that the saccharine 
solution set free by the metamorphosis of starch is forth- 
with absorbed with extreme rapidity by the veins of this 
organ. 

Deglutition, which passes the food onwards from the 
mouth through the pharynx and oesophagus into the 
stomach, as the next stage of the digestive act, is a process 
so rapid and transient, and of so little direct influence on 
the mechanical or chemical properties of the food, that 
we may dismiss it with few words. 

The obliteration of the oral cavity by the rising of 
the tongue against the roof of the mouth forces back part 
of the mouthful of chewed and insalivated food towards 
the aperture of the palate, and between the tonsils; the 
mucus covering which is thus wiped off against the alimen- 
tary mass, so as to lubricate its outside while it is being 
moulded into a kind of semi-fluid bolus. The mass, 
which next enters the pharynx, is prevented from rising 
into its upper segment by the descent of the contracting 
muscular curtain of the soft palate ; at the same moment 
that its descent into the larynx, below the base of the 
tongue, is prevented by the larynx and epiglottis being 

G 3 



86 DIGESTION. 

forcibly carried tipwards, so as to close their laryngeal 
aperture by pressing both of them against the muscular 
cushion of the tongue itself. The food has thus but 
one course open to it : namely, a descent into the funnel- 
shaped pharynx, the constrictor muscles of which propel 
it into the upper aperture of the oesophagus continuous 
with the lower part (or apex) of their own conical tube. 

The oesophagus or gullet, the tube of transmission which 
intervenes between the pharynx and stomach, extends as a 
hollow cylinder nearly along the median line of the body 
from the fifth cervical to the eleventh dorsal vertebra, 
opposite the left border of which it perforates the dia- 
phragm, to enter the belly, and open into the stomach. 
Its three coats or layers — the fibrous, muscular, and 
mucous — correspond with those found in the intestinal 
canal, where the peritoneum (or serous covering) replaces 
its outermost or fibrous layer. The muscular coat is 
divisible into two planes ; of which the external, twice 
as thick as the internal, consists of a mixture of the 
two kinds of muscular fibre known as the striped and 
unstriped — the latter, however, greatly predominating: 
and the former being limited to a scanty admixture, 
chiefly occupying these upper segments of the tube 
which adjoin the pharynx, and are continued into it. 
The inner oesophageal coat, the mucous, itself also 
thickened or strengthened by an admixture of unstriped 
muscular fibres, is characterised by a thick epithelium, 
the cells of which, forming many layers, are liable to 
a kind of natural division in the dead subject, not unlike 
that seen in various regions of the skin, a thick white 



(ESOPHAGUS. 87 

cuticular stratum being raised or detached by serum from 
the thinner and more transparent layer beneath. A few 
sub-mucous glands, analogous to the conglobate salivary 
glands of the mouth, lubricate the oesophageal contents 
with a thick mucus during their rapid transit through 
the tube." The transit itself is effected by a peristalsis, 
or transverse constriction, of the muscular fibres of the 
oesophagus ; a constriction in which the longitudinal fibres 
probably play but the subordinate part of fixing the ex- 
tremities of the tube, and preventing that elongation 
which a transverse narrowing would otherwise ineffectually 
end in. The passage of the alimentary bolus occupies 
but a few seconds ; and terminates with its descent into 
the stomach, through the cardiac aperture of which it is 
followed by a kind of temporary intus-susception of the 
lower part of the oesophageal tube. A series of nodules or 
warty projections distinguish this orifice of the stomach, 
to which they doubtless act as a kind of imperfect valve 
during its muscular contraction. 



C 4 



CHAP. IV. 

DIGESTION. THE STOMACH. 

The Stomach. — Its Shape, Size, Attachment, Situation. — Its Structure. — 
Serous Coat. — Muscular Coat. — Movements of this Coat, and of the 
Gastric Contents. — Pyloric Valve. — Mucous Coat. — Tubes. — Lenticular 
Glands. — Matrix. — Areolar Tissue. — Vessels. — Nerves. — Lymphatics. — 
Digestive Changes. — Gastric Juice. — Its Physical Properties. — Chemical 
Properties. — Physiological Properties. — Peptone. — Action of Gastric 
Juice. — Process of its Secretion. — Summary of Gastric Digestion. 

The stomach, the widest and most dilatable part of the 
alimentary canal, has a form which varies somewhat in 
different individuals. Removed from the body, and 
moderately distended, it generally takes the shape here 
represented (Fig. 5) — a shape best described as that of 
a bent cone, the concave aspect of which receives a tube 
at one fourth of the distance from its base. In it we 
distinguish an anterior and a posterior surface : a superior 
and an inferior border ; a right and a left extremity : and 
lastty, the cardiac and pyloric apertures, by which it com- 
municates with the cesophagus and duodenum respectively, 
and thus becomes continuous with the remainder of the 
digestive canal. 

The description of these parts varies with the state of 
the organ. Thus, when empty and uncontracted. the 






THE STOMACH. 89 

stomach is flattened vertically ; its anterior and posterior 
surfaces touching each other, while its upper and lower 
margins really deserve the title of " borders." But when 
the organ is distended, any transverse vertical section 
becomes almost a circle, its borders and surfaces merging 
into each other. Its uppermost part, however, is still 
distinguishable as the lesser curvature (a, e, 6, Fig. 5), 

Fig. o. 




Stomachy as seen by inflating it, and dissecting off its peritoneum, its longi- 
tudinal, and part of its transverse muscular coat. 

a, g, Cardia ; b, b, pylorus ; a, e, b, lesser curvature ; g, d, f, c, b, greater 
curvature ; g, d, to near /, cardiac sac ; c, b, b, e, pyloric sac. (Above a, g 
are seen the transverse fibres of the oesophagus ; and below these, the upper, 
most of the oblique fibres of the stomach, passing towards c. Covering the 
pyloric sac are seen the transverse fibres. The dotted line, a, e, b, shows 
how extreme distention of the stomach tends to alter the lesser curvature.) 

and its lower as the greater curvature (#, cZ, /, c 9 b). The 
general concavity of the former curve is especially marked 
in its first three fifths, at the end of which part (e) it 
usually becomes slightly convex. A shallow notch (c) 



90 DIGESTION. 

often divides the greater curvature into two portions 
opposite this pointy and, with the latter, defines the com- 
mencement of the pyloric pouch (c, ft, fe, e). The cardiac 
pouch, great or splenic extremity (d) is the part to the 
left of the oesophageal opening (a), beyond which it projects 
for about three inches. At this aperture the oesophagus 
dilates gradually, so as to resemble an inverted funnel. 
To the right of the oesophagus, the stomach expands 
slightly, to reach its maximum diameter at about the 
middle of the organ (/). Beyond this point it tapers 
away to the pylorus (6, b) 9 where a sudden constriction 
marks the side of the valve. 

The dimensions of the organ are even more variable 
than its form. In the healthy middle-aged male, the 
moderately distended stomach is about thirteen to fifteen 
inches long; and its diameter at the widest part five, 
near the pylorus two, inches. Its total surface is about 
one and a quarter square feet; its capacity about 175 
cubic inches, or five pints ; its weight seven ounces.* 

The attachment of the stomach is effected chiefly by 
the continuity of its extremities with the more fixed 
duodenum and oesophagus. The former tube is connected 
with the posterior wall of the belly ; the latter perforates 
the diaphragm, so as to enter the abdomen about one 
inch in front of the left border of the aorta, by an aper- 
ture which is everywhere muscular, though close to the 



* For women and children, these estimates require a proportionate reduc- 
tion. They are increased by habitual distention, and by the relaxation of 
old age ; diminished by habitual exercise, or by the practice of taking 
small meals (as is usual in dilative emphysema of the hugs). 



SITUATION. 91 

posterior border of the tendon. The fixation of the 
stomach is also aided by certain processes of peritoneum. 
To the left of the oesophagus, the short phreno-gastric 
omentum passes from the diaphragm to the cardiac pouch, 
which it reaches somewhat posteriorly. Still lower down, 
the stomach is united to the spleen by the gastro-splenic 
omentum. The lower border of the organ gives off the 
great omentum; this descends for some distance towards 
the bottom of the belly, and is then reflected upwards to 
the anterior border of the transverse colon, which it splits 
to enclose. The upper border of the stomach is attached 
by means of the gastro-hepatic or small omentum, which 
descends from the transverse fissure of the liver. All of 
these folds are double ; though the four layers of the 
reflected omentum majus are often inseparably united to 
each other. 

Situation. — The stomach is placed almost transversely 
in the upper part of the abdominal cavity, in which it 
passes from the left to the right side, as well as down- 
wards, and slightly forwards. This direction results from 
its situation relatively to the oesophagus and duodenum ; 
since it is joined by the former at its highest part, and 
near its left extremity, while the latter is immediately 
prolonged from its right or pyloric end. In this course 
•from left to right, the stomach successively occupies the 
left hypochondriac and the epigastric regions ; and, just 
at its termination, it reaches the right hypochondrium. 
Its anterior surface is therefore in contact with the dia- 
phragm, where this muscle lines the cartilages of the left 
false ribs, and with the wall of the abdomen. Its 



92 DIGESTION. 

posterior surface lies upon the pancreas, the aorta, and 
the crura of the diaphragm, where these parts cover the 
spine. Its left extremity is in contact, above, with the 
diaphragm ; below, with the spleen ; and, posteriorly, it 
reaches the left supra-renal capsule and kidney. Its upper 
border is in apposition to the liver, viz., to its left lobe, to 
the lobnlus Spigelii, and to part of the lobvJxs quadratus. 
Its lower border is parallel, and close to, the transverse 
colon. Unusual distention or size chiefly affects the situa- 
tion of the organ, by causing it to extend downwards, 
as to overlap or displace the transverse colon, and thus to 
reach the umbilical, the left lumbar, or even the left iliac 
region. Under similar circumstances, its left extremity 
also passes more deeply into the corresponding hypochon- 
drium, so as to be more extensively covered by the ribs. 
Its extension upwards diminishes the size of the thorax* 
but is rarely sufficient to be felt as a serious hindrance 
to the descent of the diaphragm in ordinary tranquil 
inspiration. Its right extremity may touch the gall- 
bladder. 

It may be useful to trace the effect of progressive dis- 
tention of the stomach upon its form, site, and fixation. 
When void of food, and not distended (as it often is | by 
gases, the flattened stomach hangs almost vertically in the 
epigastrium. In this state of the organ, the pulpy food 
that enters it from the oesophagus drops at once into the 
cardiac pouch, which forms its most depending part. The 
reception of further quantities effaces its upper and lower 
borders; and gradually changes them, from slightly bent 
lines, into the curves above mentioned, at the same time 



6 



EFFECT OF DISTEXTIOK 93 

that it separates the previously apposed surfaces, and con- 
verts the whole organ into a cone, convex below and in 
front. The latter of these two convexities is most marked 
at the pyloric extremity, and is often very sudden. Both 
result from the increased length of the organ, and the 
proximity of its comparatively fixed orifices. But both are 
assisted by the construction of the muscular coat, since the 
distention of the separated stomach imitates, though it 
scarcely equals, the curves taken by the organ when mo- 
derately expanded in situ. The delicate and yielding 
omenta just enumerated allow the stomach to expand be- 
tween their elastic and extensive layers, without under- 
going any disturbance of its nervous and vascular con- 
nexions, or any loss of its serous covering. Finally, 
although the stomach itself enlarges pretty equally in all 
directions, still, after filling the left hypochondrium, the 
mobility of its bent middle directs it towards that part of 
the enclosing cavity where it meets with the least resist- 
ance — namely, towards the yielding anterior wall of the 
belly. Hence, should the distended intestines not allow it 
any great descent downwards, it comes forwards ; so that 
what was its vertical surface now looks obliquely upwards, 
while its inferior border touches the lower part of the wall 
of the epigastrium, where its artery has even been felt 
pulsating in very emaciated subjects. 

In common with all the sub-diaphragmatic segments of 
the alimentary canal, the stomach is composed of three 
coats or tunics: — an external and serous, a middle and 
muscular, and an internal and mucous coat. The first of 
these attaches the organ to the cavity in which it is en- 



94 DIGESTION. 

closed; and limits, permits, and facilitates those move- 
ments which it is the chief office of the second to execute. 
The third is the most important, forming the secreting 
and absorbing surface on which the functions of the organ 
chiefly depend. 

The serous coat of the stomach is continuous with the 
double layers of peritoneum before mentioned, which 
split to enclose it where they reach its various borders. 
Here they are very loosely connected to each other, and to 
the subjacent coat, by an abundance of highly elastic 
areolar tissue. But towards the middle of the gastric 
surface, the peritoneum, though still elastic, is el 
united to the subjacent muscular tunic. The advantage of 
this mode of attachment has already been referred to. 

The structure of the serous coat is precisely that of the 
visceral peritoneum elsewhere. A single layer of flattened 
epithelia, of hexagonal shape, rests upon a stratum of 
areolar tissue, containing the scanty vessels by which this 
cell-growth is nourished. Immediately beneath the epithe- 
lial layer, the areolar tissue is condensed and firm : and its 
aspect in contact with the cells shows the smooth continu- 
ous outline of what is, developmentally, a basement mem- 
brane, but is actually inseparable from the fine yellow 
fibres beneath, through which it gradually merges into 
loose, elastic, sub-serous tissue. The large meshes of the 
latter enclose a variable quantity of adipose tis>ue. 

The muscular coat of the stomach consists of the un- 
striped or organic muscular fibre, which Koelliker has 
shown to be constructed of fibre-cells (Fig. 6, c. 6), The 
length of these cells is from Tr-Jroth to T ^th of an inch: 



MUSCULAR FIBRES. 95 

their breadth from -g- 5V0** 1 to XoVoth a ^ the middle, where 
they are flattened, and from whence they taper off to 
conical and pointed extremities. They contain a nucleus, 
which is from 2^tli to 1 \ th of an inch in length, and 
about a sixth of this in breadth. Their texture is a pale sub- 
stance, apparently homogeneous, but consisting, in reality, 
of a membrane enclosing granular or faintly striated 
contents. In other instances they are marked by swellings 
(as in 6), which, as they are rarely seen in the associated 
fibres, are probably due to casual local contractions of the 
sarcous substance itself. The arrangement of these fibre- 




Fibre-ctlls of the Tinman stomach, magnified 450 diameters, 
a, Fibre-cell, as usually seen; b, fibre-cell, with more wavy, irregular edges. 

cells is very simple ; they are packed together in parallel 
rows, their flattened surfaces adhering strongly to each 
other. They thus form small bundles, between which are 
interposed the vessels for their supply, enclosed in a spar- 
ing quantity of areolar tissue. The union and interlace- 
ment of these fascicles build up the strata of the muscular 
coat. The development of the fibre-cells takes place by 
the elongation of an oval cell, in which at the same time 
is deposited a sarcous content, that soon obscures the ori- 
ginal cell-membrane. 

In the intestine these fibres are arranged in two layers — 
an external, in which the bundles take a longitudinal 



96 DIGESTION. 

course ; and an internal, in which they are circular or 
transverse* to the axis to the tube. But, in the stomach, 
the peculiar shape of the organ is associated with a modi- 
fication of this arrangement. 

The longitudinal layer of the stomach is derived from 
the similar tunic of the oesophagus. This, on reaching the 
cardia, radiates on all sides ; its bundles becoming thinner 
as they diverge to be gradually lost among the various 
fibres with which they decussate and interlace. But, on 
the lesser curvature of the organ, they continue much 
more distinctly ; and are often traceable, as two or three 
broadish bundles, to within a short distance of the pylorus. 
The longitudinal layer which covers the pyloric extremity 
appears not to have any very direct continuity with the 
preceding. Its constituent fibres arise by scattered bundles 
at about the middle of the organ, and — often first uniting 
into two broad bands which occupy the middles of its 
anterior and posterior surfaces — they soon form a tubular 
kyer, which proceeds over the pylorus, to join the com- 
mencement of the duodenum. 

The transverse or circular fibres lie immediately beneath 
the preceding, and form a much thicker layer. To the left 
of the cardia, its rings are very few and indistinct : their 
places being taken by those of the third or oblique layer. 
But from the right of this orifice, it continues towards the 
pylorus (p, Fig. 7), with a constantly increasing thickness, 
until finally, reaching the margin of this valve, it is in- 
flected towards the axis of the stomach by a rather steep or 

* Probably in reality spiral For the grounds of this conclusion, see the 
description of these fibres in Chapter V. 



MUSCULAR LAYERS. 97 

sudden curve, which presents an almost vertical surface 
towards the duodenum. Those of its fibres which lie 
nearest to the left extremity are somewhat less regularly- 
transverse. Hence some of them decussate slightly with 
each other; while others, which pass downwards from the 
right margin of the cardia, are directed somewhat obliquely 
towards the left extremity of the organ. 




Longitudinal section of the stomach and duodenum, to show the pyloric valve, 
v, Pyloric sac of the stomach ; I, its longitudinal muscular coat ; tr, its 
transverse coat, gradually thickening into p, the pylorus ; d, commencement 
of the duodenum, 

The third, or oblique layer, lies more deeply than the 
two preceding ; and is therefore best seen by everting 
and inflating the stomach, and carefully removing its 
mucous membrane. Where the oesophagus enters the 
stomach, the transverse fibres of its left margin are so 
close to a flattened bundle of fibres, which occupies the 
notch ((7, Fig. 5) limiting the cardiac pouch, that the two 
are visibly continuous. The right or thickest part of this 
flattened band passes obliquely downwards towards the 
right side, soon breaking off from the termination of the 
oesophagus ; and from hence it continues across the trans- 
it 



98 DIGESTION. 

verse layer just described, to reach -the greater curvature, 
where the similar layers from both surfaces of the organ 
ar£ reflected into each other. Its usually well-defined 
margin occupies — and indeed forms — the notch (<?, Fig. 5). 
The posterior or thinner part proceeds, not only from the 
depression (g, Fig. 5) on the left of the cardia, but also 
from the neighbouring upper border of the great extremity : 
and its more vertical fibres are also cod tinned downwards 
to the lower border of the stomach, where they meet, so 
as to complete the circuit of the cardiac pouch. 

Movements of the stomach. — That there is an intimate 
connection between the oesophageal and gastric move- 
ments, is only what might be expected from that visible 
continuity of their muscular coats which has just been 
alluded to. 

At the close of each act of deglutition, the lower fil 
of the oesophagus contract with such force, as not only to 
obliterate the cardiac aperture, but even to cause the 
mucous membrane of this part to project into the cavity 
of the stomach. This condition remains during some 
moments. And when the alimentary bolus has thus been 
impelled into the organ, it excites muscular movements. 
As regards the state of the cardia during stomach-dig a- 
tion, the force with which it is shut is effectively superior 
to the pressure exerted on the contents of the organ by 
the gastric contractions. Still, we are ignorant how much 
of this force is due to the contraction of the lower oeso- 
phageal fibres, and how much to the shape, position, or 
structure of the stomach itself. But it is probable that 
the decussation of the transverse and oblique fibres of the 



GASTEIC MOVEMENTS. 99 

organ around the insertion of the oesophagus, renders 
their contractions a material assistance to the obliteration 
of the lower part of this tube. In any case, there can be 
no doubt that the cardiac orifice is chiefly closed by an 
active muscular contraction of its own muscular walls — 
a contraction which is excited by the stimulus of food in 
the stomach, and is independent (so far as can be judged) 
of all assistance from the diaphragm. (Comp. p. 87.) 

The movements executed by the stomach, and impressed 
upon the food during its sojourn in this cavity, vary 
according to the state of digestion and the nature of the 
aliment. 

The empty, fasting stomach offers no movement what- 
eyer. And an unnaturally solid or massive food is not 
only incapable of movement within the organ, but em- 
barrasses or checks the action of its muscular coat. A 
small quantity of liquid food excites a vermicular action, 
a gentle contraction or grasping motion of the stomach, 
so that the wrinkles of the mucous membrane gently 
close upon it, and gradually diffuse it over the whole 
surface.* 

But the ordinary state of the human stomach during 
its digestive act lies between these extremes ; and may be 
defined as one of moderate distention, with food which has 
been subdivided by mastication, and diluted with saliva 
and gastric juice, so as to possess a pulpy or semi-fluid 
consistence. 

Shortly after the ingestion of such food, the stomach 

* Beaumont. " Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice,'' 
Combe's Edition, 1838. 

H 2 



100 



DIGESTION. 



Fig. 8, 



becomes the seat of a peristalsis or transverse constric- 
tion, which starts from the cardia, and travels thence 
slowly towards the pylorus. Com- 
paratively feeble until it reaches the 
commencement (c, e, Fig. 1) of the 
pyloric sac, it here becomes much 
more distinct, and continues rapidly 
forwards, as a well-marked circular 
depression, until it reaches the firmly- 
shut pylorus. Its arrival here is fol- 
lowed by a relaxation ; interrupted, 
after lasting about a minute, by a 
repetition of this peristalsis — which, 
by the way, is accompanied by some 
longitudinal shortening of the sto- 
mach. 

As respects the movements which 
such contractions impress upon the 
food, there is the closest correspond- 
ence between the mechanical conse- 
quences of the process above described, 
and the results actually observed. 
The effect of peristalsis in a closed 
and distended tube may be repre- 
sented by an inflexible hollow cylin- 
der (Fig. 8), filled with liquid, and 
accurately fitted with a perforated 
septum, which is capable of free 
movement along its interior. Let 



Diagram to illustrate 
the effect of peristalsis 
in a closed tube con- 
taining liquid. 
The perforated sep- 
tum is supposed to be 
moving downwards, 
causing the two currents 
(the peripheral down- 
wards, the axial up- 
wards) indicated by the 
corresponding arrows. 



such a septum be moved in either direction, and it at once 






GASTRIC CURRENTS. 



101 



exerts a pressure on the body of liquid contained in that end 
towards which its motion sets. The pressure being equal 
in all directions, a portion of the fluid escapes backwards 
through its aperture. This retrograde current will be 
continually lengthened by the advance of the septum 
along the remainder of the tube. And the slow successive 
movement of a series of such septa would thus establish 
two continuous currents in the liquid — a peripheral of 
advance, and a central of return. 

Fig. 9. 




Diagram to shoiu the movement impressed on the food in the stomach. 

fl, a, The peripheral or surface current effected by peristalsis, carrying 
the semi-fluid food towards the closed pylorus ; where it is reflected into 
b, the central or axial current, occupying that real axis of the stomach, 
which unites its cardiac (c) and pyloric (between b and d) apertures. 

The existence of two such currents is little affected by 
the membranous nature and peculiar shape of the human 
stomach (Fig. 9). For, just as the comparative inactivity 
of the cardiac pouch would not prevent their occurrence 
as a consequence of pyloric peristalsis, so the very mode- 

H 3 



102 DIGESTION. 

rate contractions of this sluggish part suffice to define the 
axis and its current, as that curved line which unites the 
cardiac and pyloric apertures. " The bolus of food, as it 
enters the cardia, turns to the left, passes the aperture, 
descends into the splenic extremity, and follows the great 
curvature towards the pyloric end. It then returns in 
the course of the smaller curvature, makes its appearance 
again at the aperture in its descent into the great curva- 
ture, to perform similar revolutions. These revolutions 
are completed in from one to three minutes."* In other 
words, there is a backward movement of the gastric con- 
tents, from the pylorus, along that real axis of the stomach 
which unites the two orifices of the stomach near it- 
lesser curvature. Thus every part of the stomach La 
occupied by one or other of the two currents; and the 
mutual interference of these at their borders gradually 
causes a uniform diffusion of the various alimentary 
matters moving with them. Finally, the reflection of 
one current into the other at the pylorus, insures an 
equal contact of all the semi-fluid food with the surface 
of the mucous membrane ; since those portions of the 
food which occupy the axis of the stomach during one 
moment, are destined to move along its periphery during 
the next. 

At a later period of gastric digestion, the contract: 
of the cardiac extremity appear even less active than 
before; and the longitudinal shortening of the organ is 
also less marked. The chief visible commencement of 
contraction is at the same place (c, t\ Fig. 5) where it waft 

* Beaumont, op, cit. p. 101. 



OFFICE OF PYLORUS. 103 

formerly increased, and where it now forms a deep con- 
striction or hour-glass contraction. After this constriction 
has continued a short time, it sends onwards towards the 
pylorus a rapid peristalsis, which appears nearly to 
obliterate the tube in its course, and ends by engaging 
the muscular ring of this valve. A slight relaxation 
closely follows this peristalsis, and is succeeded by a 
complete dilatation of the pyloric sac. Lastly, the hour- 
glass contraction itself sometimes disappears ; and an 
interval of about two to three minutes precedes the 
repetition of the whole process. Often, however, the 
constriction remains until the peristalsis recommences. 

The effect of these contractions on the contents of the 
stomach is twofold. The obliterative peristalsis of the 
pyloric sac arrests all backward current in its axis, and 
extrudes a small portion of its contents into the duodenum. 
But in the intervals of these violent contractions, the 
ordinary peristalsis appears to be attended by the double 
current above alluded to. 

The structure of the pylorus already described, and the 
movements of the stomach just specified, demand a view 
of its action very different from that selective power 
usually attributed to it, and implied by its very name 
(irvXcopb?, portce custos). Far from being a specific and 
independent structure, which contracts against the food in 
the earlier stage of digestion, but subsequently relaxes to 
permit the passage of the chyme, it must be regarded as a 
mere terminal thickening (p, Fig. 7) of the transverse coat; 
with a strength proportional to its bulk, and an office, not 
only closely analogous to that of the transverse fibres, 

H 4 



104 DIGESTION. 

but almost identical in both stages of gastric digestion. 
Instead of relaxing only at the end of this act, to allow a 
moderate peristalsis to urge through its aperture a selected 
portion of food, the pylorus is, at all periods of stomach- 
digestion, a contracted inflection of the transverse coat ; 
through which the more fluid and homogeneous parts of 
the gastric contents are continually being strained, in 
small quantities, and at frequent intervals, by a more or 
less violent muscular effort — by a process, in short, of 
coarse filtration, aided by mechanical pressure.* 

Mucous membrane. — The mucous membrane, on which 
the functions of the various parts of the intestinal canal 
essentially depend, is so modified in the stomach, i 
offer a complex arrangement, such as remarkably conn 
it with the simpler layer that lines the pharynx and oeso- 
phagus. And it is distinguished from the compound mem- 
brane of the intestine by the possession of certain special 
structures : — namely, the proper gastric cells, or glandular 
epithelia, as they are sometimes called. 

The remaining tissues of this mucous membrane are 
similar to those met with in the intestine. A delicate 
membrane is involuted or moulded upon a quantity of 
areolar tissue. The latter texture thus forms the matrix 

* It is interesting to observe how little the aetion of the pylorus is con- 
nected with any stimulus other than a gastric one. The flow of bile into 
the fasting stomach may perhaps be regarded as a transit, such as this 
janitor might well concede to a fluid which is not only harmless, but n 
mentations. But in the obstructed canal, feces pass through the valve from 
the duodenum with equal facility, although the stomach soon resents their 
presence by vomiting — an act which seems generally to imply a shut pylorus. 
And Magendie has observed, that the gases of this portion of the into - 
can be made to pass the valve with equal facility : while those distending 
the stomach excite its contraction. 






GASTEIC TUBES. 105 

of the mucous coat ; and as such, contains its vessels, 
nerves, and lymphatics, and connects it with the middle or 
muscular coat* While, on its opposite side> the delicate 
limitary or basement membrane sustains a number of 
minute cells which bound the cavity of the canal. 

Examined by the naked eye in situ, the mucous mem- 
brane of the stomach is seen as a tolerably firm but soft 
layer, of a pale pink colour, which everywhere loosely lines 
the interior of the muscular coat, and projects from its 
surface in numerous wrinkled folds. These rugce chiefly 
occupy the cardiac half of the organ, forming convolu- 
tions which, though somewhat irregular, are mainly longi- 
tudinal. They are effaced by distention of the stomach. 
On putting the mucous membrane on the stretch, we may 
often discern that its whole internal surface is occupied by 
extremely minute pits or depressions ; the confluent and 
projecting intervals of which become so much longer as 
they near the pylorus, that they may be compared to short 
villi. These depressions are the openings of the stomach- 
tubes or proper gastric glands. 

The stomach-tubes (a, 6, c, cl, Fig. 10) may be described 
as cylinders of basement membrane, which are packed 
vertically side by side in a sparing matrix of dense areolar 
tissue, and are filled by a peculiar cell-growth. Below, 
they terminate in closed and rounded extremities (d). 
Above, they expand slightly before reaching the free sur- 
face of the membrane (at a); where their margins finally 
become continuous with each other, so as to form a series 
of low ridges, the height and width of which vary some- 
what in different parts of the stomach. The length of 



106 



DIGESTIOX. 



these tubes is, on an average, about ^Vth of an inch. Their 
diameter is about -33-0-th of an inch. Thus their length 
has to their breadth a proportion of ten or twelve to one. 

Fig. 10. 




Vertical section of the stomach, near its middle, and parallel to its 
Magnified 30 diameters, 

a, Openings of stomach-tubes, and their intervening ridges or \ : 
tions ; b, upper parts of the tubes, lined by columnar epithelium ; c. lower 
parts, occupied by proper gastric cells : d, pounded ends of the tub- g 
dense areolar tissue, containing fibre-cells, and continuous with the inter- 
tubular matrix ; /, submucous areolar or cellular coat, of a looser texture, 
and containing vessels (some of which are seen cut across"): 0. trans 
layer of the muscular coat ; h, longitudinal layer ; i. peritoneal coat. 

Their form frequently so far deviates from that of a simple 
cylinder, as to present slight constrictions or undulations. 



GASTKIC CELLS. 107 

And occasionally they even exhibit a kind of csecal pouch 
or blind offset of greater or less length. These pouches 
usually spring from the lower extremities of the tubes, 
which have generally a somewhat increased diameter in 
their neighbourhood. But with these exceptions (which 
are, I believe, the result of mechanical violence) the 
gastric tubes form simple, straight cylinders, and only 
widen where they open on the inner surface or cavity of 
the stomach. 

The limitary or basement membrane of these tubes pre- 
cisely resembles this delicate homogeneous layer in other 
mucous structures, possessing an equal (or even greater) 
tenuity. It is usually seen only as a dark outline, bounding 
some isolated part of a tube. Earely, however, it may be 
identified as a delicate, floating, and collapsed fold ; which, 
on the addition of a dilute alkali, first swells up, and then 
disappears. On the ridges which unite the tops of the 
tubes, it is quite impossible to separate it from the sub- 
jacent structures : — an intimate adhesion, in striking con- 
trast to the ease with which we can often isolate it from 
the matrix around the tubes themselves. 

As regards the contents of these tubes, the upper fourth 
or fifth of their length presents a single layer of columnar 
epithelium (6, Fig. 10; a, a, Fig. 11). Seen as isolated 
cells, the particles of this epithelium have a cylindrical 
shape, and enclose a very distinct nucleus near their at- 
tached extremity. But when seen in their natural situ- 
ation, and from the free side of the mucous membrane, 
they appear as hexagonal prisms ; containing nuclei, which 
are so near to their lower ends, as to be separated from 



108 



DIGESTION. 



the basement membrane by little more than their cell- 
wall at this part. The remainder of the tube is, under 
normal* circumstances, always occupied by oval or some- 
what angular cells (at c, Fig. 10; c> c, Fig. 1 1), of considerable 

Fig. It 




Upper part of a tube from the middle of the human 'stomach, showinp the 
arrangements of its columnar and oval cells. Magnified 200 and 800 
diameters. 

a, a, Columnar cells of the upper part, free and in situ ; b. b. small an- 
gular cells, also free and in situ, into which these merge below, to form a 
central or axial layer within c, c, the proper gastric or glandular cells, also 
free and in situ, 

size. The largest of these oval cells are about 1 .^ th of 
an inch in diameter. They have a more or less distinct 



* In reference to the alleged expulsion of these during gastric digestion. 
compare p. 128. 



GASTRIC FOLLICLES. 109 

membranous wall. The nucleus they contain is usually 
in contact with that side of their parietes which is 
attached to the basement membrane of the tube ; and it 
sometimes exhibits a nucleolus. Their contents are finely 
granular, with here and there refractile dots, which have 
a close resemblance to oil-globules. And, besides the 
above granular material, most of these cells appear to en- 
close numerous (5—15) pale, flat, and extremely delicate 
cytoblasts. The centre of the layer formed by these cells 
is apparently lined by a series of small angular cells (6, 6, 
Fig. 11), which surround and enclose a narrow thread-like 
calibre or cavity ; and above, merge into the columnar 
epithelium of the upper part of the stomach-tube. The 
interstices of the oval cells seem to be occupied by granules 
and minute cytoblasts. 

Lenticular glands are also found in the stomach. As 
regards their shape, size, situation, and contents, they cor- 
respond with the follicles* or solitary glands of the intes- 
tine. Their number varies extremely. Sometimes it is 
impossible to find any. In other specimens, they are 
scattered more or less thickly throughout the whole 
organ. They are said chiefly to affect the lesser curva- 
ture ; but I have seen them sown very plentifully over the 
pyloric region only. In children, they are rarely absent. 

Matrix. — The cylindrical tubes of the stomach are 
united to each other, in their whole height, by a sparing 
quantity of a fibrous network or matrix ; their blind ends 
also resting upon a layer (e, Fig, 10) continuous with that 

* See the description of these structures in the following chapter. 



110 DIGESTION. 

surrounding their sides. Near the free or cavitary 
surface of the stomach, this dark firm matrix is almost 
homogeneous. But in the deeper parts of the mucous 
membrane it is easy to distinguish, in addition to vessels, 
fibres which surround the tubes, and decussate with each 
other. This matrix, which also surrounds the intestinal 
tubes, and thus extends from the cardia to the anus, is 
composed of a variable admixture of areolar tissue with 
unstriped muscular fibres. The latter appear to pass from 
the oblique and transverse layers of the muscular coat, 
through the areolar tunic, to reach the intervals of the 
stomach-tubes in the form of bundles which decussate 
at an acute angle. The action of these fibres is probably 
connected chiefly with the adjustment of the mucous 
membrane to the effects produced by the contractions of 
the proper muscular coat. 

Areolar tissue. — A layer of loose sub-mucous areolar 
tissue (the tunica nervea of authors) connects the mucous 
and muscular coats. Seen in vertical sections ('/, Pig. 10), 
its thickness is a little greater than that of the layer of 
matrix beneath the ends of the tubes. It is composed of 
the ordinary white and yellow fibrous elements : the fila- 
ments of the latter being chiefly of small size. Externally, 
it is firmly connected with the muscular coat, from which 
it receives fibres, and to which it sends off processes to 
form the septa of the muscular bundles. But more inter- 
nally, where it approaches the fibrous matrix, its meshes 
are very large and loose ; so as to allow the mucous mem- 
brane to be thrown into folds by the contraction of the 



GASTEIC VESSELS. 



Ill 



muscular tunic. It contains the vessels, nerves, and 
lymphatics, which supply the other coats. 

The vessels of the stomach are very large and numerous. 
The arteries are derived from the abdominal aorta. The 
veins empty themselves into the vena portce, which rami- 
fies in the liver. 

Fig;. 12. 




Arteries of the stomach, as seen by raising this organ, to show their origin 
from the cceliae axis. 

s, Stomach ; d, duodenum ; I, liver ; p, pancreas ; sp, spleen ;j, jejunum ; 
a, a, coronary artery ; b, splenic artery ; c, left gastro-epiploic artery ; e, 
vasa brevia ; f superior pyloric artery ; h, hepatic artery ; m, superior 
mesenteric artery ; n, aorta ; q, q, right gastro-epiploic artery. 

The arteries come from the cseliac axis* This vessel, 
which leaves the aorta opposite the first lumbar vertebra, 
continues obliquely forwards, as a short thick trunk, for 



112 DIGESTION. 

about half an inch, when the " axis " ceases by giving off, 
at right angles to itself, three large branches : — the gastric, 
hepatic, and splenic. 

The distribution of these branches may be summed up as 
giving to the stomach an artery, from two sources, along 
each of its curvatures*, with numerous vertical anastomoses 
between these two horizontal vessels on each of its surfaces. 
Indeed, all the arteries and veins of the stomach are cha- 
racterised by the great freedom and frequency of their 
inosculations, in every stage of their course from the aortic 
to the portal trunks. This condition is especially well 
marked in the arteries, which in number and size far 
exceed those distributed to an equal bulk of most of the 
other structures of the body. This fact is doubtless con- 
nected, not merely with the large supply of blood they 
send the stomach, but also with a smaller resistance, and 
greater velocity, in their channels ; and especially with that 
efficient and sudden control of their calibre which the 
varying exigencies of the gastric circulation would seem to 
imply. 

Their tortuous course, and their loose connection with 
the stomach, chiefly refer to the distention of this organ. 
For as the stomach extends between the layers of omen- 
tum, it gradually straightens these vessels, and alters their 
position with respect to itself and each other. 

The distal branches of both arteries and veins perforate 
the muscular coat at different intervals, by twigs which 
unite with each other in the loose sub-mucous areolar 
tissue, so as to form two flattened networks : — one. which 

* Shown in the figure on the preceding page. 






GASTEIC CAPILLARIES. 



113 



is composed of small arteries ; — and another, of veins. 
The vessels of the latter plexus are, as usual, both larger 
and more numerous than the corresponding arteries. 

Capillaries. — The arterial branches which leave this 
sub-mucous network to enter the dense muscular layer of 
the matrix of the stomach, divide here once or twice. 
And their ultimate ramifications, which have a diameter 

Fig. 13. 




Diagram showing the vessels of the mucous membrane of the stomach, as they 
would be seen in a vertical section. Magnified 30 diameters. 

a, Small artery of the plexus in the sub-mucous areolar tissue; t, capillaries 
forming a network around the stomach-tubes ; r, larger capillaries, forming 
a superficial network on the ridges which separate the open mouths of these 
tubes ; v, veins, formed by branches from the latter network, and ending 
below in the sub-mucous plexus. 



of about , * n th to 

1 o O 



^y^-th of an inch, pass vertically up- 
wards, along the sides of the tubes, to their upper aper- 
tures, where they form a superficial network of capillaries. 
In passing upwards, they also give off other capillaries f 



114 DIGESTION. 

which surround the tubes at all parts of their height, so as 
to form a second and deeper network. The meshes of this 
latter plexus are somewhat oblong (t 9 Fig. 13), but less de- 
cidedly so than those of the capillary network of striped 
muscle; and are about y^o"th to ^-^h of an inch in size. 
The capillaries which compose them are, on an average, 
little more than j^th of an inch in diameter. The more 
superficial network is contrasted with this deeper one, not 
only in the fact that its capillaries are about double the 
above size (or 2S * th of an inch), but also in its meshes 



Fin. 14. 




Superficial capillaries of the gastric raucous membrane, from an irr 
specimen. Magnified 60 diameters. 



(Fig. 14) being nearly twice as close (or about -^th to 
-g^th of an inch). But the two plexuses inosculate so 
freely as to be quite continuous with each other at the 
upper apertures of the tubes. As regards the form of the 
superficial network, it corresponds exactly with the inter- 
vals of the tubes. For the ridges which occupy the 
surface of the organ are all, as it were, moulded upon 
capillaries ; the union of which forms a network that sur- 
rounds the aperture of each tube with a loop or ring 



GASTRIC CAPILLARIES. 115 

(r, Fig. 13), complicated by the addition of other meshes 
(Fig. 14) on either side of it, just within the orifices of 
the tubes. In shape and size, these meshes closely resem- 
ble the loops beneath the ridges ; and are, indeed, no way 
distinguishable from them except in their situation. Below, 
their diameter diminishes ; their loops elongate ; and they 
finally merge into the capillary network which surrounds 
the tubes. 

It is from the large capillaries which compose the super- 
ficial network that the radicles of the veins almost exclu- 
sively arise. They begin as small vessels of about 15 1 00 th 
of an inch in diameter; and, by one or two successive 
unions of these and of their resulting larger branches, soon 
attain a width of about xoT^ °f an inch. They now pass 
vertically downwards between the tubes, to open into the 
venous plexus of the sub-mucous areolar tissue. 

The general result of this arrangement on the circula- 
tion in the stomach is, that the blood which has already 
traversed the capillaries of its tubes is further transmitted 
to its surface ; and that, in respect to their size and situa- 
tion, the superficial capillaries of the gastric mucous mem- 
brane offer some analogy to veins. Hence, it is probable 
that the velocity of their contents far exceeds that of the 
blood circulating in the capillaries of many other tissues. 
Such a peculiarity would admirably adapt them to that 
absorptive office, which their situation on the cavitary 
surface of the stomach indicates to be one of their chief 
functions. 

The nerves of the stomach are derived from two sources : 
from the pneumogastric, and the sympathetic, nerves. 

I 2 



116 DIGESTION". 

The branches of the pneumogastric nerves leave these 
trunks at the lower end of the oesophagus ; and, after a 
variable course in a nearly vertical direction — those of 
the left anteriorly, those of the right posteriorly, to the 
stomach — they perforate the muscular coat. Diminished 
in size, they then ramify in the sub-mucous areolar tissue ; 
in which they may be traced for a considerable distance, 
until lost from increasing minuteness, on the under surface 
of the mucous membrane. 

The sympathetic nerves distributed to the stomach are 
branches from the great prevertebral centre of this nerve 
in the belly : — from the vast and complex ganglion formed 
in front of the aorta by the semilunar ganglia laterally, and 
by the solar plexus which unites these in the middle line. 
The large plexiform ganglion thus constituted u r ives off a 
process — the coeliac plexus — which envelopes the cceliac 
axis with a dense network of nerves; itself further breaking 
up into subordinate plexuses around the coronary, hepatic, 
and splenic branches of this arterial trunk (a, b, /'. Fig, 12 . 
Closely interlaced around these vessels, and doubtless from 
time to time distributing branches to their coats, the 
plexuses corresponding to the arteries just mentioned | 
along them to the stomach ; which they reach to penetrate 
the muscular coat, and to disappear in the sub-mucous 
tissue, like the gastric branches of the pneumogastric 
nerves. 

The lympfJuxtics of the stomach consist of two sets : — 
one beneath the peritoneum, immediately outside the 
muscular coat ; another (a plexu of larger vessels, with 
more frequent communications) in the sub-mucous coat, 



GASTRIC JUICE. 117 

between the mucous and muscular tunics. They anasto- 
mose freely at the ends of the stomach with the lymphatics 
of the liver, spleen, and pancreas ; and are still more 
directly continuous with some glands, which are of small 
size in the healthy individual, and are chiefly placed near 
the lesser curvature of the organ. 

Changes during digestion. — The inner surface of the 
healthy fasting stomach is of a pale pink colour. The 
mucous membrane, itself always exhibiting an acid reac- 
tion, is covered by a thin stratum of alkaline fluid, derived 
(as its chemical and microscopical examination abundantly 
proves) from the various secretions which enter the organ 
by the oesophagus and duodenum. The introduction of 
food gives rise to two chief alterations in the state of the 
stomach. Its muscular coat is excited to the movements 
already described; and at the same time its mucous 
membrane deepens to a bright pink colour, and begins to 
pour forth a liquid — the gastric juice. 

Physical properties. — Pure gastric juice is a transparent, 
limpid, structureless liquid, of a pale straw colour. Its 
taste is distinctly acid; and its smell a peculiar faint 
odour, characteristic of the species of animal from which it 
is derived, and allied to that of the blood. Its specific 
gravity is about 1003 '3. In the healthy human adult, the 
quantity secreted during the twenty-four hours probably 
ranges from ten to twenty pints; and under favourable 
circumstances* its maximum in an hour may be estimated 
at not less than six or eight pints. 

The chemical properties of the gastric juice are best 

* Such as long fasting followed by a large meal of meat. 
I 3 



118 DIGESTION. 

noticed by successively considering its acid, saline, and 
animal constituents. 

The gastric acid. — Omitting exceptional instances, in 
which acetic, butyric, and other acids allied to these pro- 
ducts of organic decomposition, have been found in ineffi- 
cient quantity in the contents of the stomach — and further 
eliminating the view taken by Blondlot, which ascribes the 
acidity of this secretion to the presence of the acid phos- 
phate of lime — there are two views of sufficient importance 
to demand notice. One of these regards the gastric acid 
as the hydrochloric, and another as the lactic, acid. There 
can be no doubt that each of these acids has been re- 
peatedly found in the gastric juice as the chief or 
cause of its acidity.* There is just as little doubt that 
they are sometimes present together; and that* even in the 
same species and individual f, the hydrochloric maybe 
replaced by the lactic acid. While we shall Bee that either 
of the two would suffice to restore to a neutralised gastric 
juice its original digestive powers. 

But a careful consideration of the facts hitherto known 
leads me to the opinion, that, in these latter cases, the 
lactic acid is always a secondary and accidental product : 
and that the balance of evidence inclines decisively to- 
wards a single acid of the gastric juice, which, as normally 
secreted, owes its acidity exclusively to hydrochloric acid.J 

* Lactic acid by Chevreul, Lassaigne. Thomson. Lehniann. Payen. Bern 
Frcrichs, and Smith; hydrochloric by Front. Punglison, Braconnot. T. 
rnann, Enderlin, Schroeder. Bidder, and Schmidt. 

t In Alexis St. Martin, as it would appear from a comparison of 
analyses by Dunglison in 1S33. and F. G. Smith in 1S-56. 

I Compare author's Essay, "Stomach," (>^. cit. p. S'oO. 



GASTKIC JUICE. 



119 



Salts. — As regards the salts of the gastric juice, the 
details of an analysis of this secretion may be best com- 
prehended (if not explained) by comparing them with a 
similar quantitative examination of the liquor sanguinis. 
The following table* exhibits such a comparison, for a 
thousand parts of both fluids. 



Water . 

Animal matters 
Mineral substances 

Chlorine 

Sodium 

Potassium (in dog, '2 ?) 

Phosphoric acid 

Phosphate of lime 

Phosphate of magnesia 

(Lime corresponding to '624: Ca. CI.) 



Liquor 


Gastric 


Sanguinis. 


Juice, 


903*0 


973*2 


88-5 


170 


8-6 


9-8 


3-6 


5'6 


3-3 


1-2 


•3 


•6 


•2 


•6 


•3 


1-2 


•2 


-2 




•3 



1000-0 



1000-0 



Hence, while most of the salts of the blood are present 
in increased quantity in the gastric juice, the chloride of 
sodium is so greatly diminished, as to lower the total saline 
contents of this secretion below those of the blood-liquor. 
While the amount of hydrochloric acid is so great, as not 
only to compensate this loss, but even to raise the total of 
its mineral constituents above that of the blood-liquor. 
The origin of this acid is obvious. Its mere quantity is 

* Here the composition of the gastric juice is calculated from an analysis 
by Schmidt ; and that of the blood-liquor is quoted from Lehmann (Physio- 
logische Chemie, Bd. ii. pp. 153, 179). To facilitate comparison, both 
analyses are reduced to one place of decimals ; and the phosphate of lime 
of the former is divided into acid, and neutral phosphate. 

I 4 



120 DIGESTION. 

sufficient to refer it to the chloride of sodium, which is the 
most plentiful chloride of the parent fluid. And the re- 
markable diminution in the sodium of the secreted fluid 
further confirms this view. Indeed, it is interesting to 
notice that almost all the differences between the salts of 
the two fluids may be included in some such hypothesis 
that of — (1) a rapid transudation of the blood-salts gene- 
rally, followed by their concentration through an absorption 
of part of their water of solution; (2) a decomposition of 
about half of the chlorides, and chiefly of the chloride of 
sodium * ; and (3) a return of the base of this salt into the 
blood. While it is evidently to a derivation of acid from 
some of the constituents of the latter fluid that we must 
refer the important fact established by Dr. Bence Jones: — 
namely, that, during digestion, the healthy urine loses the 
acidity proper to it at other periods. 

Organic substance, or Pepsi/ne, — The addition of alco- 
hol to pure gastric juice, or to a watery infusion of stomach, 
causes a white flocculent precipitate ; which, when dried 
at a low temperature, forms a much less voluminous mass, 
of a yellowish grey colour, and a somewhat gummy ap- 
pearance. This substance reddens litmus, and is soluble 
in cold water ; but may be again precipitated from its 
aqueous solution by alcohol. Its ultimate composition 

* Such a decomposition would obviously present many analogies to an 
electrolysis. But though the acid and base are certainly unloosed a: 
parated, the process itself cannot be definitely referred to this cause in the 
existing state of our knowledge. We may. however, notice, that both the 
quantity and quality of the chloride of sodium would render it more suscep- 
tible to electrolytic action than any other of the salts present in the blood- 
liquor. 



PEPSINE. 121 

closely resembles that of the various protein-compounds, 
from which it differs chiefly in containing more nitrogen. 
And even its other chemical properties bear out this re- 
semblance : its differences from many of the albuminous 
compounds consisting chiefly in the fact, that it is not 
precipitated from its watery solution by some of the salts 
which would throw down dissolved albumen. Allowing 
for variations due to impurities, the reactions of gastric 
juice, and probably of pure pepsine, are as follows. It is 
not precipitated by heat, ferrocyanide of potassium, 
sulphate of copper, alum, chloride of iron, or mineral 
acids. It is precipitated, though not completely, by 
bichloride of mercury. Carbonates of the alkalies pre- 
cipitate its lime-salts. And the soluble salts of silver and 
lead throw down the chlorides of these metals. In all of 
these instances a portion of the pepsine is carried down 
with the precipitate. In the case of the salts of lead the 
greater part of the pepsine is thus deposited, but may be 
almost wholly recovered by washing. 

Action of the gastric juice. — The addition of a few 
drops of dilute hydrochloric acid to a solution of the above 
precipitate in cold water, constitutes a liquid which pos- 
sesses energetic solvent powers over ordinary animal food. 
Hence the organic substance itself has been termed pepsine 
{7rsy]rt9 9 concoctio) : — a name to which there can be no 
objection, so long as its meaning is confined within proper 
limits ; and is not extended to imply a single and definite 
organic compound, capable of digesting all the alimentary 
principles. 

Temperature exercises an important influence on the 



122 DIGESTION. 

gastric solvent. At the ordinary temperature of the at- 
mosphere, the action of the gastric juice is scarcely per- 
ceptible, even when continued during many hours. Lower 
degrees of cold suspend its action still more completely. 
Heated to the temperature of the body, namely, to about 
100° Fahrenheit, it acts very energetically. A further 
accession of temperature at first increases, but soon in- 
jures, and finally destroys, all its digestive powers. The 
precise point at which this change of effect occurs is not 
clearly known; but it is probably at or near 120°. The 
dried pepsine of the artificial digestive fluid will, however, 
sustain a temperature of 160° without damage. But at a 
heat above this, it becomes wholly inactive, and partially 
insoluble. And the pepsine of pure gastric juice is stated 
by Dunglison to be insoluble in hot water. 

Alcohol, acids, and alkalies, when applied in excess, 
have also a destructive influence on the digestive power 
of pepsine. 

In the case of acids, this injurious effect is much less 
marked. As might have been expected from the constant 
reaction of the gastric juice, an acid is essential to its 
digestive efficacy ; — indeed, we might almost say, to 
its very existence. Even that incomplete loss of acid, 
which is necessarily involved in the precipitation of its 
pepsine, must be compensated by an artificial aeidula- 
tion, before an aqueous solution of this substance 
regains its former powers. Here, however, as in the case 
of heat, it is necessary that certain limits should be 
observed. About half the quantity of hydrochloric acid 
present in the gastric juice forms a tolerably effective 



EFFECT OF REAGENTS. 123 

fluid. But the normal proportion (about 3 parts per 1000) 
may be increased to three or four per cent., not only with 
impunity, but even with advantage. 

The nature of the acid seems a matter of indifference. 
Nitric, phosphoric, sulphuric, acetic, and lactic acid, have 
all been successfully made use of. And the range of 
amount already specified for hydrochloric acid might, 
a priori, prepare us for the fact, that the requisite quan- 
tities of these acids seem solely related to their more or 
less dilute state, and do not allow us to recognise any 
traces of equivalent proportions. 

Applied in still larger quantities, all of these acids first 
weaken, and then destroy, the digestive power of the 
solution of pepsine. The comparative amount of injury 
inflicted by equal quantities of the different acids appears 
to depend (like their solvent efficacy) chiefly on the degree 
of their concentration. 

The essential aid given by the acid, is well shown by 
the effect of neutralising a natural or artificial gastric 
juice with an alkali. Under these circumstances, it not 
only loses all action upon albuminous substances, but, if 
mixed with them, shares their putrefaction. Left to 
itself, however, its powers are only suspended, being 
renewable by the addition of an acid. The addition 
of a larger quantity of alkali permanently destroys all 
its solvent powers, and is followed by its rapid putre- 
faction. 

But though an acid is thus one of the essential elements 
of a digestive fluid, it must not be thought that any such 
agent can imitate the gastric secretion, even when asso- 



124 DIGESTION. 

ciated with an infusion of saliva, mucus, intestine, bladder, 
or other animal product or tissue. The solution accom- 
plished by such fluids is excessively slow, superficial, 
and imperfect; and affords, not that new compound 
produced by gastric juice from albuminous substances, but 
a weak and turbid solution, which readily yields its dis- 
solved constituents to ordinary reagents. And even in 
the case of an acidulated infusion of intestine — where the 
results are probably affected by the diffusion of gastric 
juice over the whole digestive canal — the nature and 
amount of the process do not allow it to be any way com- 
parable with that effected by gastric juice. 

The effect of the neutral salts on artificial digestion has 
scarcely been investigated with all the attention it merits. 
But it is probable that many of these inorganic substances 
assist solution, when present in small quantities, and 
oppose it when added in excess. This is especially the 
case with chloride of sodium, the ordinary condiment of 
Man and of many animals. 

The effect of alcohol is also regulated by its amount and 
concentration. Diluted, it seems to have no chemical 
action whatever. In larger quantities, as before remarked, 
it precipitates pepsine. And in still greater excess, it 
permanently destroys all its digestive energy. 

In respect to the solvent properties of the gastric juice 
on the various protein-compounds, an exact determination 
of the quantity of pepsine which these substances require 
for their solution, would greatly assist us in solving many 
problems with respect to the chemistry of digestion. But 
the estimates derived from actual experiment are very 



PEPTONE. 125 

conflicting, — if, indeed, they can be considered really 
comparable. It may, however, be estimated, that one 
part of pepsine will dissolve about fifteen of moist and 
finely divided abdomen : while the gastric juice itself 
possesses the power of dissolving from fifteen to twenty 
per cent, of its weight of the same substance. 

The gastric juice dissolves, not only the various protein- 
compounds, but gelatin, chondrin, and gluten. In doing 
so, it arrests (and generally removes) all decomposition 
or putrefaction which they may be undergoing. The 
mere physical condition of ^the substances to be dissolved 
remarkably influences the rate of the process : density and 
bulk rendering it slow, while conversely, it is accelerated 
by minute division. The quantity of solvent required 
varies with the nature and aggregation of the particular 
substance. 

In any case, the ultimate effect is that of a complete 
i solution, containing a substance which (as shown by 
j Mialhe and Lehmann), whatever the substance originally 
! dissolved, possesses certain properties, entitling it to the 
'; name of peptone. 

Peptone. — The following properties are common to all 
kinds of peptone. Eeduced to the solid form by careful 
evaporation, it is a white or yellowish-white substance; 
almost tasteless and inodorous ; very soluble in water ; but 
insoluble in alcohol of eighty-three per cent. Its watery 
solution reddens litmus, and is precipitated by chlorine, 
tannic acid, and metallic salts; but is unaffected by boil- 
ing, by acids, or by alkalies. With alkalies and bases, it 
forms very soluble neutral compounds or salts. An aque- 



126 DIGESTION. 

ous solution of these is still less precipitable by reagents 
than one of peptone itself. Thus it is only thrown down 
by tannic acid, bichloride of mercury, and a mixture of 
the acetates of ammonia and lead: — the acetate of lead, 
and the ferrocyanide of potassium, causing but a faint 
cloudiness ; and even concentrated acids, nitrate of silver, 
and alum, having no effect. 

The ultimate chemical composition of any particular 
peptone so closely resembles that of the substance from 
which it is formed as scarcely to require any further 
notice. 

In speaking of these chemical phenomena of stomach- 
digestion, there remains but to notice, that the addition of 
water, or a small quantity of fresh acid, is capable of re- 
storing some of its original digestive powers to saturated 
gastric juice, or to a solution of peptone. 

The above properties of the gastric juice naturally sug- 
gest the question — What is the nature of its action ? 

In answer to this question we may premise, that it is 
obviously no simple process of solution by a dilute acid ; 
no mere contactive influence (like that of spongy platinum 
in the acetification of alcohol); no mere fermentation 
(like that excited by yeast in a solution of sugar); no 
mere combination of a complex acid with protein-com- 
pounds which constitute bases (as in the " hydrochloro- 
pepsic " view propounded by Schmidt). 

If we must connect the above details by some theory, 
we may first remark, that the gastric juice dissolves pro- 
tein-compounds ; that it renders them highly soluble ; and 
that it assimilates their form and reactions to its own, 



THEOEY OF GASTKIC JUICE. 127 

without changing their composition. For any parallel to 
such a process we can only look to those lower degrees of 
chemical action, where solution and combination, adhe- 
sion and affinity, may be supposed to meet and merge into 
each other ; where proportions are tolerably definite, but 
true equivalents indistinct ; and where, though form is 
changed, and reactions modified, elementary composition 
remains little affected. Actions of such a kind may be 
found in the union of many substances with water, or its 
elements, to form the compounds called hydrates. And 
the conversion of protein into peptone, by the gastric 
juice, presents so many analogies to the formation of a 
hydrate*, that it seems not impossible the chief office of 
this secretion may be that of enabling water to combine 
with the various members of the albuminous groups of 
alimentary substances; in order to their acquiring that 
solubility, and uniformity of constitution, which must 
probably precede their admission into the current of the 
blood. To this vague indication of a theory, I will only 
add, that the mode in which a definite quantity of the 
organic principle takes part in such a process cannot even 
be conjectured. Its action certainly appears no way com- 
parable to the effect of diastase on starch, or of emulsine 
on amygdaline. It seems to be an assimilation, in the 
strictest chemical sense. It is not impossible that the 
acid commences the process by a slight, though genuine, 
solution of the more resisting substances. And at any rate, 
this constituent seems to have the power of checking 

* Compare Prout " On Stomach and Eenal Diseases," fifth edition, p. 470. 



i 28 DIGESTION. 

putrefaction, if not of arresting all metamorphosis, in the 
other ingredients of the secretion : like the small quantity 
of sulphuric acid which is added by the chemist to hydro- 
cyanic acid with the same object. 

Process of secretion. — The process by which the gastric 
juice is secreted from the mucous membrane of ^the sto- 
mach can scarcely be regarded as known, even in its 
larger phenomena. To correct some prevalent errors, and 
to offer a conjecture which future researches alone can 
fully substantiate, is all that the author would attempt 
here. 

The secretion of gastric juice is not effected by any ex- 
pulsion of the glandular contents of the stomach-tubes. 
Their elaborate and dimorphous structure might alone 
suffice to prove this proposition. And the mere quantita- 
tive objections to such a view are scarcely less conclusive.* 
Bat it is better refuted by two facts: (1) that during 
every stage of gastric digestion, the tubes may be seen 
with precisely the same form, size, arrangement, and con- 
tents!, which they exhibit during the fasting state; and 
— (2) that the pure gastric juice is completely structure- 
less. 

As regards the visible details of the act of secretion, Dr. 
Beaumont has reported some interesting observations. He 
made use of magnifying glasses, by the aid of which he 
could distinguish the spheroidal glandular follicles, and the 

* This expulsive view, applied to the human stomach, during diges* 
would imply the entire reconstruction of its cell-growth from 60 to 1 
times in one hour ! 

t The greater softness and delicacy of these contents is no exception to 
this fact. 



PROCESS OF SECKETIOX. IC9 

papillce situated in their interstices. These papilla, or 
villi, he found to be scarcely visible until food was applied 
to the mucous membrane ; when they underwent a kind 
of erection, and protruded from its surface in the shape of 
small sharp processes. (Compare Figs. 10, 14.) From 
these, according to this faithful observer, the gastric juice 
appears to exsude. Its secretion begins by the gradual 
appearance of innumerable lucid specks, which are smaller 
than the mucous follicles. These specks or points rise 
through the transparent mucous coat ; and seeming to 
burst, discharge themselves upon the very points of these 
vascular papHl&, as a thin, transparent, colourless, limpid, 
acid fluid, which collects in small drops, trickles down 
their sides, and spreads over the whole gastric surface.* 

Comparing this description with what we now know 
respecting the anatomy of the mucous membrane, it is 
difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion, that the large 
and numerous capillaries beneath its ridges are intimately 
connected with the secretion of the gastric juice ; as well 
as with the absorption of peptone and other dissolved in- 
gredients of the food. And such an office is further sug- 
gested by the fact discovered by Bernard, that it is only 
the surface of the mucous membrane which exhibits an 
acid reaction, either in the digesting or fasting state, f 

* So thoroughly persuaded \ras Dr. Beaumont (op. cit.) that the fluid 
exsuded from the papilla alone, that he had not the least doubt the excre- 
tory ducts of the follicles ^vere inclosed in these villi, and terminated in the 
lucid specks just alluded to ; although he admits that he could not see any 
apertures here. 

f In verifying this observation, I have sometimes found, belovr the sur- 
face, a faint acidity, such as might be derived from the mere imbibition of 
the acid fluid from above. 

K 



130 DIGESTION. 

It would therefore seem, that the ridges and papilla 
which separate the apertures of the tubes on the free sur- 
face of the gastric mucous membrane, secrete what is, 
quantitatively, a large proportion, and qualitatively, the 
acid ingredient, of the gastric juice. And I am entitled 
to add, that it appears very probable that the tubes them- 
selves, and the specific glandular or oval cells they con- 
tain, are chiefly (if not exclusively) concerned in the 
secretion of the organic principle ; which exsudes from 
them as a solution, the density and quantity of which 
remain for the present unknown. 

We may end these remarks by a summary of the share 
of the stomach in digestion generally. 

The mastication and insalivation of the food is imme- 
diately followed by its deglutition, which propels the pulpy 
or semi-fluid mass it now forms into the stomach. 

On entering this organ, it is subjected to a special act 
of gastric digestion, the total duration of which may be 
estimated as averaging two hours. 

The energetic action of the mixed saliva is not affected 
by the gastric juice secreted by the stomach. Much of 
the starch of the food is probably converted into sugar 
during the short sojourn of the aliment in this cavity. 
The sugar thus produced would seem to be absorbed by 
the vessels of the gastric mucous membrane with extraor- 
dinary rapidity. The w^ater, salts, and soluble organic 
compounds of the food are similarly taken up. And the 
gastric juice attacks and dissolves the proteinous element 
of the food. The perfection of this process of solution 
depends on the mechanical state of the substances con- 



STOMACH. — DIGESTION. .131 

cerned, and on the quantity and efficiency of the active 
liquid. Of the resulting solution or peptone, part is im- 
mediately absorbed by the gastric vessels, while part 
passes on into the duodenum, in company with protein 
which has not yielded to the solvent process, as well as 
with unsaturated gastric juice. Much of this protein 
ultimately becomes dissolved, and, with the peptone which 
accompanies it, is taken up by the veins of the intestine. 
That, of all the secretions poured into the alimentary 
canal, the gastric juice alone has the power of converting 
the albuminous compounds into peptone — is a proposi- 
tion which has too direct a bearing on the function of the 
stomach to be omitted here, though the reasons which 
demand its reception cannot be adduced. But while 
referring to the following chapter for the chief facts which 
militate against the possession of any share in this power 
by the intestinal and pancreatic juices, I would add, that 
it is evident the gastric juice retains its digestive efficacy 
after passing the pylorus ; and that it is to the presence of 
this secretion (concentrated, perhaps, by absorption) that 
the solvent action on protein, attributed by many able 
physiologists to these other secretions, are doubtless due. 



K 2 



132 



CHAP. V. 

DIGESTION. — THE SMALL INTESTINE. 

The Intestine. — Small Intestine. — Duodenum ; its three Portions. — Mesen- 
tery. — Convolutions. — Jejunum. — Ileum. — Muscular Coat. — Its Move- 
ments; as deduced, observed. — Theory of its Peristalsis. — Mucous Mem- 
brane. — Valvules Conniventes. — Tubes. — Their Secretion, or "Intestinal 
Juice." — Villi. — Their Constituents, including the Lacteals. — Their 
Changes during Digestion. — Absorption of Fat. — Follicles ; Agminate, 
Solitary. — Racemose Glands. — Accessory Organs. — Paneiva-. - 
Structure. — Secretion or Pancreatic Juice. — Its Physical. Chemical, Pro- 
perties. — Its Share in Digestion; or Action on (1) Starch, (2) Fat, (3) 
Protein-Compounds. — Liver. — Its Supply of Blood. — Ita Physical Charac- 
ters. — Its Structure; Capsule V Umaes, Ducts. — Ita two-fold 
Function. — The Bile. — Its Quantity : as influenced by the Gall-bladder. 
— Its Composition. — Its two-fold Destiny; Excretion. Resorption.- 
Influence on Digestion. — Its Sources. — Influence of the Liver on Diges- 
tion. — Contrast of Portal and Hepatic Bloods. — Progress of Digestion in 
the Small Intestine. 

The intestine begins at that external constriction which 
corresponds to the pylorus (p, Fig. 15), and marks the 
boundary between the stomach and the intestinal canal. 
The latter, at about five sixths of its length downwards, is 
divided into two portions by a change of size, correspond- 
ing to the presence of a ccecum or blind appendage (cc) 
without, and of a valve within the tube. Of these portions, 
the upper, long and narrow, is called the small intestine : 
and the lower, short and wide, the large intestine. 

The small intestine, cylindrical when distended, has an 



SMALL INTESTINE. 



133 



average length of 20 feet, and a diameter of 1J inches. 
But its yielding texture allows it to be narrowed by exten- 

Fig. 15. 




Stomach and intestinal canal of the adult human subject, 
c P, stomach ; c, cardiac ; p, pyloric orifice ; J i, small intestine ; J, jeju- 
num ; i, ileum ; c c to a, large intestine, viz. : — -c c, caecum ; a c, ascending 
colon ; t c, transverse colon ; d c, descending colon ; s f, sigmoid flexure 
or sigmoid colon ; b, rectum ; A, anus. 

sion, and shortened by dilatation. It occupies the cavity 
of the belly ; its commencement, at the pylorus, being in. 

K 3 



134 DIGESTION. 

the right hypochondrium ; its end, at the caecum, in the 
right iliac fossa, to which the commencement of the large 
intestine is attached. Part of this terminal portion often 
occupies the pelvis ; but most of the intervening small in- 
testine is so free to move, that it may casually occupy 
almost any part of the abdominal cavity. 

That upper end of the small intestine which is con- 
tinuous with the stomach may be distinguished from the 
remainder by certain differences of arrangement and struc- 
ture. Starting from the pyloric constriction, it curves in 
the shape of a horse-shoe around the head of the pancreas ; 
where it receives the ducts of this gland, and of the liver, 
and is closely fixed by peritoneum to the posterior wall of 
the belly. This segment is called the duodenum, from its 
length being estimated at twelve finger-breadths (about ten 
inches). It first passes from the pylorus outwards, upwards, 
and backwards, for about two inches, to the under surface 
of the right lobe of the liver. This, the first portion, as it 
is called, is invested by peritoneum on both surfaces, like 
the adjacent stomach. Its second portion, about three 
inches long, turns downwards and slightly inwards, in front 
of the right kidney, to the right side of the third lumbar 
vertebra ; having a covering of peritoneum on its anterior 
surface only, while its posterior and left aspect is connected 
with the adjacent organs by a loose areolar tissue, which 
concedes to the tube a considerable capacity for distention, 
and even for movement. The third portion, about five inches 
in length, passes across the spine below the pancreas, and 
behind the attached border of the transverse meso-eolon ; 
the two layers of which partially cover its front, but leave 



MESENTERY. 135 

a narrow uncovered space along the line of their bifurca- 
tion. Owing to its partial covering of peritoneum, this 
inferior portion of the duodenum is even less moveable 
than the preceding. And the position of the pancreas 
above it, causes its distention chiefly to tell on its inferior 
surface, which is sometimes so bulged downwards, as to 
cover the aorta nearly to the division of this vessel into 
the common iliac arteries. 

The fixation and curvature of these two last portions of 
the duodenum probably delay the transit of substances 
through this intestine, as well as assist that admixture of 
its alimentary contents with bile and pancreatic juice, to 
which its attachment seems chiefly to refer. Its use as a 
means of fixing the stomach, has already been noticed. 
Its immunity from hernia is explained by its remoteness 
from all those parts of the abdominal walls, which are sus- 
ceptible of rupture. 

The small intestine below the duodenum is loosely at- 
tached to the posterior wall of the belly, by a double layer 
of peritoneum, called the mesentery (fiscro?, middle, fV- 
rspov, intestine). Behind, this mesentery is fixed to the 
areolar tissue covering the aorta and vena cava, by a line 
of attachment which, descending from the end of the 
duodenum to the beginning of the caecum, passes obliquely 
across the spine from the left to the right side of the 
lumbar vertebrae. In front, its two layers split to enclose 
the bowel, around which they become continuous with each 
other. The distance between its spinal and intestinal 
borders is from three to five inches, save at its duodenal 
and caecal ends, where it is suddenly diminished in depth, 

K4 



13S DIGESTION. 

We may perhaps gain a better idea of the peculiar shape 
of the mesentery, by figuring it as an obtusely triangular 
piece of some flattened membranous substance ; fixed to 
the spine by a truncated apex of some three inches in 
length, while its broad base, little less than twenty feet 
from one end to the other, is attached to the intestine, 
which it is thus the means of plaiting up into a series of 
convolutions, so as to occupy the least possible space. 

It is the extreme freedom of movement which such a 
mode of attachment concedes to the small intestine that 
gives rise to the convoluted appearance so characteristic of 
the tube, as seen by laying open the belly in necropsies. 
The exact configuration of all these convolutions probably 
never repeats itself, even in the same individual ; being 
the joint and complex result of the muscular movements 
of the canal, the nature and amount of its contents, the 
size of the neighbouring viscera, and the state of the walls 
of the belly. The effect of dilatation on the small intestine 
resembles that produced by the same cause in other parts 
of the alimentary canal ; distention of the tube causing it 
to extend backwards between the loosely connected layers 
of the mesentery, with a proportional shortening of this 
tether. 

It is usual further to distinguish the small intestine 
below the duodenum into a jejunum* and ileum]; the 



* Jejunum, from the jejune or empty state in which it is usually found 
after death. 

t Ileum may connote its convolute form (eiAt'or, circumvolvo), its being 
the most frequent seat of the diseases termed ileus, or its relation to the on 



MOVEMENTS. 



137 



former being the upper two fifths, the latter the lower 
three fifths, of its length. This distinction, though arbi- 
trary in principle, and vague in application, is too con- 
Fig. 16. 



Portion of a bundle of fibre-cells from the muscular coat of the intestine. 
Magnified 250 diameters. 
a, nuclei of the fibre-cells. 
venient to be altogether dispensed with ; the less so, that 
it tolerably coincides with certain peculiarities in the 
structure of the mucous membrane, hereafter to be al- 
luded to. 



133 DIGESTION. 

The muscular coat of the small intestine consigts of 
fibre-cells (compare Fig. 6) ; the bundles of which (Fig. 16) 
are arranged in two layers, an outer or longitudinal, and an 
inner or circular. The first is much the thinner of the two ; 
constituting a layer, which is often scarcely visible at the 
mesenteric border of the tube, but is thickened into a more 
complete stratum at the opposite or free border, where it 
is firmly united to the peritoneum. Its office is probably 
to preserve that immobility and inextensibility of the 
bowel, which are requisite for the proper action of the 
transverse coat. The circular fibres of this latter form a 
much stronger and more perfect layer ; and many of their 
bundles seem to take a slightly oblique * direction, so as to 
join with others above and below them. Both layers (es- 
pecially the transverse) are somewhat stronger at the com- 
mencement of the duodenum. But from the middle of 
the jejunum, their thickness remains unaltered up to the 
caecum. 

Movements of the small intestine. — The normal muscular 
action of the intestine is usually defined as a peristalsis, or 
circular constriction (irspi arsXXxo) which, travelling slowly 
down the bowel, in a direction towards the anus, propels 
the intestinal contents in a corresponding course. But 

* Though a spiral arrangement is not distinctly visible, vet it may be 
noticed that, while the microscopical details hitherto verified no way for- 
bid such a view, the laws of muscular contraction strongly suggest it. For 
the effective contraction of muscle always engages it in that line which would 
traverse the greatest number of its sarcous particles. And it is only by 
supposing the fibre-cells of the circular layer arranged in spires that we can 
understand the general advance of contraction at right angles to the axis of 
its constituent fibre-cells, or explain the extreme slowness of its peristalsis. 



MOVEMENTS. 139 

such a movement has for the most part been rather main- 
tained as a doctrine, than verified as a fact. 

The mere thinness of the muscular coat of the bowel 
would alone suffice to suggest for it a much less vigorous 
movement than that of the oesophagus or stomach, in 
which the same coat is from two to five times as thick. 
Indeed, any such active and continuous peristalsis as that 
seen in the stomach (p. 99, et seq.) would not allow of a suf- 
ficient sojourn of the food in the bowels, properly to ac- 
complish the intestinal share of the digestive process. For 
even a slow peristalsis of two inches in the minute would 
traverse the whole intestine in two or three hours ; a speed 
which would amount to that of a violent and exhaustive 
diarrhoea in the human subject. More direct evidence^ 
however, is at our disposal. 

Sometimes the muscular action of the bowels can be 
seen and felt through the walls of the belly. In some 
Polyps, an intermittent, and indeed rhythmic, peristalsis 
can be seen under the microscope. And even in Man, the 
borborygmi which sometimes occur in what is substantially 
good health afford valid evidence of active intestinal 
movements. While intestinal obstruction, in which both 
the bowel and the belly are distended and thinned by an 
accumulation of liquid above the occluded part, allows us 
to recognise a vigorous progressive contraction engaging the 
dilated bowel. 

When the belly of a healthy living animal is laid open 
by vivisections, injury, or surgical operation, its intestines 
are generally seen to be at rest. But this state of quies- 
cence is probably to be explained by the pain and dis- 



140 DIGESTION." 

turbance such injury inflicts, interfering with the always 
slow and feeble contractions of the bowel. Indeed, there 
are grounds for asserting that the irritation of the perito- 
neum, which is involved in such exposure, has a specific 
influence in relaxing the subjacent muscular coat. 

It has also been usual to augur the muscular actions of 
the living intestine from an inspection of the entrails of 
animals shortly after death. On laying open the belly of 
a newly killed animal, the intestines are seen lying per- 
fectly still. But in a short time, those parts of them which 
are exposed to the air exhibit contractile movements: 
often irregular, undefinable, and, in a word, rather "vermi- 
cular " than peristaltic ; often, however, taking a definite 
course along the bowel toward the rectum ; and always 
ending in a rigidly contracted and motionless condition of 
the bowel. But these appearances seem chiefly due to the 
contact of the air ; and, interesting as they are, they war- 
rant no conclusions as to those more definite movements 
which are necessarily executed by the intestines during life. 

Local irritation of the intestines under the same circum- 
stances, affords results almost equally inconclusive with the 
preceding, which indeed they often closely resemble. For 
example, the mechanical irritation of the bowel produces 
a contraction which is sometimes immediate, often er pre- 
ceded by a considerable interval of time ; sometimes local, 
oftener prolonged below, or even above, the irritated part ; 
sometimes discontinuous or interrupted. Generally, the 
contraction outlives, by a considerable interval, the with- 
drawal of the stimulus; sometimes repeats itself, without 
the application of any new irritation, as a succession of 



MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS. 141 

waves gradually diminishing in their intensity. Finally, 
the capacity for such contractions may not only be pre- 
served by warmth, and by preventing the access of air, but 
may even be partially restored by the similar treatment of 
an already exhausted part of the bowel, or may be re- 
covered during an interval of repose. 

The mechanical irritation of the exposed intestine of a 
living animal gives very different results. Compressing 
the bowel between the fingers produces a local contraction, 
which lasts a few minutes, and then disappears. Scratching 
the peritoneal surface usually gives rise to elevations just 
as local. These elevations seem to begin by a relaxation 
of the outer or longitudinal muscular layer, afterwards 
gradually extending to the deeper circular fibres ; which lat- 
ter often remain excitable to contraction, when the former 
have lost all irritability. But the mechanical or chemical 
irritation of the mucous membrane is often quite ineffective 
in exciting any movement in the muscular wall of the 
bowel, even when it suffices to provoke downright convul- 
sions in the hind feet of the animal. 

The observations of Ludwig and Schwarzenberg upon 
Dogs, the interior of whose intestines had been rendered 
accessible by the establishment of artificial jistulce, afford 
better evidence respecting the normal intestinal movements. 
By introducing into the bowels balls of wax, attached to 
-slender lead wires, they verified some important details. 
They found that the intestinal contents are propelled by a 
slow continuous peristalsis which has a definite direction 
towards the rectum. Irritation always provokes a local 
.contraction. But it only gives rise to peristalsis at definite 



142 DIGESTION. 

times, during the intervals of which the intestine remains 
at rest. These times have a general connection with the 
digestive act ; the period of greatest activity being about 
five hours after a meal ; that of least activity, before it. 
But peristalsis may also be produced in a starving animal, 
and an empty tube. And a single continuous irritation, 
applied at the proper period, generally produces a repeated 
and intermittent (or rhythmic) peristalsis, in the intervals 
of which peristalsis irritation is thus incapable of provoking 
contraction. 

We may therefore sum up all the foregoing details 
somewhat as follows. The direct irritation of the organic 
muscular coat of the intestine excites local contractions ; 
which are of slower access, feebler power, and longer dura- 
tion than those which would be excited by the similar 
irritation of the striated or voluntary muscle. Shortly 
after death, these contractions evince a general tendency 
to extend beyond the site of their origin. But during life, 
this tendency is so modified and regulated, in obedience to 
the circumstances of the digestive act, as to be either exalted 
into a definite and effective peristalsis, or suppressed al- 
together. This peristalsis, the muscular action proper to 
the bowel, is the chief agent in the propulsion of its con- 
tents. As regards its energy, we may conjecture that it is 
restricted to that slow gentle action which would suffice 
for such a purpose. In character, it is essentially inter- 
mittent. In respect to its extent, it seems uninterruptedly 
to traverse long segments of the tube. But it is doubtful 
whether any contraction proceeds continuously through the 
whole intestine. And it is probable, that all the more 



THEORY OF PERISTALSIS. 143 

active forms of peristalsis are essentially rhythmic repeat- 
ing themselves at definite intervals of time. 

The exact mechanism of this peristalsis remains, how- 
ever, in obscurity. The slow, feeble, and enduring 
character of those local contractions which irritation can 
excite, seems specific to the fibre-cell ; a view which is 
especially suggested by the remarkable contrast verified in 
the striped muscular coat of the intestine of the Tench 
(Cyprinus tinea). But while the phenomena of peristaltic 
action seem to imply some wider connection of different 
points, and times, than the mere tissue of the unstriped 
muscle would suggest or explain, and even to point out 
the nervous system as the medium of this connection; our 
ignorance of the ultimate arrangements of the nerves in 
the muscular coat leaves us in doubt as to the relative 
shares of nerve and muscle in these peculiar contractions. 
The contractility of the muscular coat is, doubtless, in- 
herent to the sarcous substance itself. And its peristalsis 
is, just as certainly, a complex and thoroughly co-ordinate 
act, which is placed in at least an indirect dependence upon 
the cerebro-spinal centre. Indeed, Weber's experiments 
on the highly excitable intestine of the Tench indicate the 
medulla oblongata as constituting that segment of this 
centre through which such a dependence is chiefly brought 
about. But the exa^t degree in which the various sym- 
pathetic centres which intervene between the medulla ob- 
longata and the bowel transmit, modify, or originate, the 
nervous changes which pass to and fro, remains for the 
present unknown. It is, however, probable that neither of 
the two chief intervening ganglia (vertebral and prever- 



144 



DIGESTIOX. 



tebral) bound the transmission of an afferent change, or 
really originate an efferent one. 

The mucoiis membrane of the small intestine, which is 
composed of the ordinary elements of a basement mem- 
brane, an epithelium, and a layer of areolar tissue contain- 
ing an admixture of muscular fibre-cells, is variously 

Fig. 17. 




Small intestine distended and hardened by cdeohol, and laid open to show 
the valvules conniventes occupying its interior. 



involuted, so as to complicate the simple flat expanse it 
would otherwise form by valvules conniventes, tubes, villi. 
follicles, and racemose or conglobate glands. 

The valvulce conniventes* are transverse folds, which 
project from the surface, into the cavity, of the bowel. 

* So named from their presumably delaying, but conniving at. the pas- 
sage of the intestinal contents. 



THE VALVULE CONjNIVEJSTTES. 145 

They begin in the second portion of the duodenum, to 
cease in the lower fifth or sixth of the small intestine. 
Extreme distention reduces their size, but fails to efface 
them ; a fact which distinguishes them from all the tem- 
porary folds of the stomach or intestine. Small and 
scattered in the duodenum, their size and number reach 
a maximum in the jejunum, and diminish again in the 
ileum; in the lower third of which they almost disappear. 
Each consists of a doubling of mucous membrane ; within 
which is a process of the subjacent loose areolar tissue, 
containing vessels, nerves, and laeteals, and capable of 
being effaced by that artificial emphysema which is pro- 
ducible by violent inflation of its network. Their direction 
is nearly transverse to the axis of the tube ; and their 
extent around it forms one half or three fourths of its 
circle. Deepest in the middle of this arc (often 3 to 6 
lines), they sink at its extremities into the general mu- 
cous surface. Extreme distention renders them vertical to 
the intestinal surface. But in the normal dilatation of the 
tube they are not only exceedingly mobile, but their free 
margin seems generally to be directed somewhat obliquely 
up or down the tube. 

The precise details of their office are imperfectly known. 
But they obviously increase the mucous membrane of 
the bowel to a surface twice or thrice as large as that of 
a corresponding tube with a simply cylindrical wall. And 
it is also evident that their arrangement transversely to the 
axis of the canal confers increased effect upon this en- 
largement : by placing them at right angles to the direc- 
tion of peristalsis, and therefore to the general course of 

L 



146 



DIGESTION. 



the intestinal contents. This arrangement, combined with 
their great mobility, enables them to ensure the thorough 
admixture of all the intestinal contents ; and, by delaying 
the onward passage of these contents, brings about a greatly 
increased contact between the mucous surface of the bowel, 
and the various substances on which it has to act. 

Tubes. — The other constituents of the mucous mem- 
brane of the small intestine are so small, that their 

Fig. 18. 




Intestinal tubes from the jejunum, as seen in a vertical section. {Magnified 

80 diameters.) 

a, Limitary or basement membrane ; b, nuclei of the columnar cells which 
line its interior ; c, calibre or cavity of the tube ; d, mouths of the tubes 
opening into the general cavity of the intestine ; e, blind extremities of the 
tubes, resting upon the sub-mucous areolar tissue. 

structure can only be verified by the aid of the mi- 
croscope. And amongst these minute organs, the tubes 
(commonly called the follicles of Lieberkuehn) have the 
first claim ; since they occupy the large as well as the small 
intestine, and even, in some animals, usurp a portion of 



INTESTINAL TUBES. 147 

the gastric cavity. In Man, they are so numerous, that 
we may estimate their aggregate surface as from ten to 
fifteen times that of the general cavity of the bowel into 
which they open. 

Each tube is a hollow cylinder, of a length about five 
times its width ; ending below in a rounded extremity, 
above by a wider opening ; and composed of a basement 
membrane and epithelium. The latter is a layer of 
short columnar cell -growth ; which clothes the whole in- 
terior of the tubes ; and is continuous, at their upper ends, 
with the somewhat longer epithelial cells covering the 
adjacent villi. The calibre or cavity bounded by this 
epithelium has a diameter about one fourth of the mem- 
branous tube. 

Their arrangement so precisely recalls that of the sto- 
mach-tubes (p. 105) as to require no separate description. 
The chief interruption to their presence is caused by the 
villi, follicles, and glands hereafter noticed. Of these three 
structures, the latter merely encroach by their minute 
ducts on the space which would otherwise be occupied by 
tubes. But the two former claim a much larger amount 
of mucous surface. And since the tubes occupy the in- 
tervals of the villi (see Figs. 20, 31), the number of these 
processes strewn over the intestinal surface will necessarily 
affect that of the tubes. Over the projecting upper parts 
of the follicles, the tubes are also absent in a corresponding 
and circular space, which they often surround with a ring 
of apertures. (Compare Fig. 30.) 

These tubes secrete a clear, structureless, viscid homo- 
geneous liquid ; the properties and action of which, how- 

L 2 



148 DIGESTION. 

ever, remain in part undecided. For the tubes themselves 
are too minute to permit any satisfactory chemical exa- 
mination of the liquid in their interior. While the 
general contents of the bowel form a mixture of nume- 
rous secretions and ingesta, which are themselves all 
undergoing a complex and continual metamorphosis. 
Nothing short of the exclusion of all chyme (including 
in this word all the gastric juice passed into the intestine 
from the stomach ) 3 bile, pancreatic juice, and even of the 
scantier secretions of Brunn's glands, and of the intestinal 
follicles, would leave that pure residuum which alone 
would deserve the title, and illustrate the properties, of 
an " intestinal juice." 

The nearest approach to these obvious conditions of 
experiment has been made by Lehmann ; who procured 
intestinal juice from a fistula consecutive to a hernia in 
the human subject : where all communication between 
the segment of intestine yielding this juice, and the liver, 
stomach, and pancreas, seemed to be excluded by the 
presence of another fistula higher up, which allowed the 
efflux of the whole intestinal contents. Frerichs obtained 
a similar juice from animals in whom he had emptied 
and enclosed a piece of intestine between two ligatures 
five hours before death. Here any negative evidence 
otherwise derivable from the observation is rendered 
unsafe by the contingencies (shock, inflammation, &c) 
connected with the vivisection itself. Lastly, Bidder and 
Schmidt compared the mixture withdrawn from simple 
fistulse instituted in the bowels of animals, with the purer 
fluid similarly obtained when the secretions poured out 



INTESTINAL JUICE. 149 

by the biliary and pancreatic ducts had also been diverted 
externally through fistulous apertures. Here some ad- 
mixture of gastric juice was, to say the least, almost 
unavoidable. 

The purer intestinal juice of such observations is 
a viscid, transparent, colourless, alkaline liquid, con- 
taining a scanty admixture of abortive cell growth, 
but essentially structureless. Its alkalinity is (directly or 
indirectly) attributable to soda. Its quantity appears to be 
small. Its composition includes mucus and the ordinary 
blood-salts; which together form about 2 per cent, of 
solids, the quantity and quality of which tolerably cor- 
respond to a specific gravity of about 1010. 

As regards its physiological action, the intestinal juice 
appears to convert starch into sugar with great rapidity ; 
being little (if at all) inferior in this respect to those 
special agents of this metamorphosis found in the sali- 
vary glands and the pancreas. 

But a far more important office is claimed for this secre- 
tion ; namely, that of dissolving protein-compounds. Bidder 
and Schmidt have made careful quantitative researches, 
which show that its solvent powers in this respect are from 
three to four times greater than those of the gastric juice 
itself; and that, in the Dog, half the daily albumen of a 
flesh diet is habitually left untouched by the stomach, to 
undergo" such a solution in the intestine. And Zander 
offers what is essentially the same conclusion. 

The observations of Lehmann and Frerichs, however, 
concur to state that neither in nor out of the body does 
the pure intestinal juice dissolve the protein-compounds. 

L 3 



150 DIGESTION. 

And the especially trustworthy researches of Lehmann in 
the instance already mentioned are confirmed by the 
equally negative results of an infusion of intestinal tubes. 
Allowing for dilution and impurity, such an infusion might 
fairly be expected, like the parallel infusion of stomach, to 
repeat the effect of the secretion to which it corresponds. 
But it possesses no such solvent action whatever. And 
while a variety of arguments * equally militate against it, 
the accuracy of Bidder and Schmidt's admirable researches 
seems quite compatible with the view — rendered probable 
by many allied considerations — that the gastric juice which 
is passed into the intestine from the stomach may be con- 
centrated here by a partial reabsorption of its watery 
constituent ; just as that gradual neutralisation of its acidity 
which is also effected in the intestine may well avoid the 
hurtful results to this secretion of the far more sudden 
and violent process by which the chemist reverses the na- 
tural reaction on adding an alkali. 

Whatever the exact office of the intestinal juice, con- 
sidering the vast secreting surface by which it is yielded, 
and its strongly alkaline reaction, it is doubtless one of the 
chief agents of that process by which the acid reaction 
possessed by the chyme as it leaves the stomach is neu- 
tralised in the intestine. Indeed, this alkaline reaction 
probably has a definite (and complementary) relation to 
that large quantity of acid which is withdrawn from the 
blood, in the stomach, to furnish the gastric juice : the 
liberation of soda or some other alkaline base f appearing 

* Some of which will be found in the M Cyclopaedia of Anatomy, Suppl. 
Article Intestine," p. 34S et seq. 
t Compare p. 120. 



VESSELS OF TUBES. 151 

almost implied in that of hydrochloric acid. But the exact 
locality of the neutralising process is so far unknown, as 
that we are left to choose between the alternatives of the 
intestine on the one hand, or its capillary veins, charged 
with the acid they have absorbed, on the other. Of these 
alternatives, the former is much the more probable. 

The vascular arrangements of the intestinal tubes only 
differ from those of the stomach-tubes in the fact, that the 
superficial (and specially absorptive) network of vessels is 
composed of loops which, save in the neighbourhood of 
the follicles, are generally more simple than are the cor- 

Fig. 19. 




Capillaries occupying the surface of the mucous membrane of the small in- 
testine ; as seen on examining an injected specimen by reflected light, with 
a magnifying power of about 50 diameters. 

a, b, capillaries around the orifices of the intestinal tubes. At a their 
meshes are more numerous and complex than at b, where they are almost re- 
duced to single capillaries ; c } calibre or cavity of the intestinal tube. 

L 4 



152 DIGESTION. 

responding gastric capillaries. They anastomose freely 
with the capillaries of the adjacent villi ; the venous radi- 
cles of which join the confluent venous capillaries around 
the mouths of these tubes, to form small veins that sink 
vertically through the mucous membrane, to join the sub- 
mucous plexus of the portal system. 

Fig. 20. 




Vertical and longitudinal section of the small intestine in the lower part of 
the jejunum, showing the general arrangement of its coats. {Magnified 
50 diameters.) 

a, villi ; b< intestinal tubes ; c, submucous areolar tissue ; d, circular fibres 
of the muscular coat ; e , longitudinal fibres, external to these, covered by 
peritoneum. 

Villi. — The inner surface of the small intestine has 
almost everywhere a texture like that of velvet ; soft, 
shaggy, yielding readily to pressure, and, on inspection, 
seen to be composed of innumerable short thread-like 



VILLI OR PAPILLAE. 153 

processes, which are seated vertically on the general wall of 
the canal. These processes which, as the cause of this 
velvety appearance, are named villi, might be much better 
named, in consonance with their form and situation or 
office, the intestinal or chyliferous papillae. 

Pig. 21. 




I 

Villus from the upper part of the jejunum, as seen in the fasting state. 
Magnified 140 diameters. 

a, epithelium of the villus ; b, parenchyma or substance of the same. 

They begin in the upper part of the duodenum, and in 
the intervals of the tubes, by bluntly pyramidal and flat- 



154 DIGESTION. 

tened folds, of which the base is about five times as broad 
as the height (3-^th inch.) In the lower part of the duo- 
denum they become about twice as long, and half as broad, 
as the above measurements respectively. In the upper 
part of the jejunum they reach their greatest number and 
length ; being planted so closely that their interstices 
scarcely equal their own width, and ranging from ^th to 
iVth of an inch in length. Their form is still that of a 
flattened cone, with a breadth ^th, and a depth y^th, of 
its height. Henceforth they diminish in length and some- 
what in number ; though, with this difference, they clothe 
the whole mucous surface (including the valval ce conni- 
ventes) completely up to the free edge of the ileo-colic 
valve. They are, however, necessarily absent over the 
mouths of tubes ; and are also deficient over the follicles ; 
on the " agminate " or collected varieties of which they 
are further reduced to short, blunt, irregular (a, Fig. 31), 
or even confluent, processes where they occupy the inter- 
stices of the several adjacent follicles. 

We have seen that each valvula connivens is a doubled 
fold of mucous membrane, containing a process of areolar 
tissue ; and each tube a cylindrical membrane, enclosing a 
cavity, and imbedded in a scanty fibrous mass. In like 
manner, each villus may be regarded as a solid process of 
mucous membrane ; constructed, in accordance with such a 
definition, of epithelium, basement membrane, fibrous 
tissue, unstriped muscle, and blood-vessels. In addition 
to these general constituents of the mucous coat, it specially 
encloses one or more lacteal or chyliferous vessels. 

The epithelium (a 3 Figs. 21, 26), is a layer of elon- 



VESSELS OF THE VILLI. 155 

gated cells, in form closely resembling those seen on the 
ridges between the tubes of the stomach. They are, how- 
ever, more delicate in consistence, and more conical in 
shape ; and their contents, even during fasting, darker and 
more granular. The basement membrane beneath offers a 
similar resemblance, being closely attached to the vessels 
and other subjacent structures; from which latter, however, 
it is occasionally raised as a small bulla or bleb by the 
dosmose of water. 

Fig. 22. 




Vessels of two villi, injected. Magnified 100 diameters. 

a a, arteries entering the basis of each villus near its centre ; v v, veins 
seen in the same situation ; c, capillaries lying immediately beneath the 
limitary membrane ; d, tortuous capillaries occupying the free extremity 
of one villus ; b, limitary or basement membrane of the villus, denuded of 
its epithelium. 



156 DIGESTION. 

The blood-vessels are extremely numerous. Small 
(i~dVo*k in.) arteries, which pass up between the tubes, 
enter the base of the villus, either singly, or two or three 
to each villus, in the substance of which they ascend at 
some distance from the surface, giving off many capillaries, 
into which their own diminished trunks finally merge at 
or near the middle of the process. These capillaries, in 
diameter a trifle larger than blood-discs (youo"^ 1 in«)' 
branch out immediately beneath the basement mem- 
brane into a network, which is so dense as to give the 
whole villus a vivid red colour in injected specimens, and 
is made up of close meshes, the length of which is usually 
five or six times their width. They are often wavy or 
tortuous (6, Fig. 22), especially at the free end of the pro- 
cess ; a condition in great part attributable to the casual 
contraction of its muscular layer. The veins come from 
this network by the union of the capillaries in the upper 
half of the villus to form two or more branches ; which, 
wider and more superficial than the corresponding arteries, 
become confluent in a single vein passing vertically down- 
wards to join the venous plexus that surrounds the mouths 
of the tubes. The latter plexus also communicates with 
that of the villus through the other capillaries at its base. 
by means of which the two networks might almost be said 
to merge into each other. 

The granular substance of the villus presents no definite 
structure beyond an occasional faint striatum, which rarely 
approaches a fibrous character. Mixed with this striation. 
however, are seen delicate cytoblasts, of which the larger 
attain the size of coloured blood-corpuscles (6, Figs. 21, 23. 



LACTEALS OF VILLI. 



157 



24), while the smaller range down to granules by increas- 
ing minuteness. They communicate to the whole villus a 
mottled and granular aspect, which obscures all the other 
structures beneath the basement membrane. 

Fig. 23. 




Two villi, denuded of epithelium, with the lacteal vessel in their interior. 
From the Calf. Magnified 350 diameters. {After Koelliker.) 
a, limitary membrane of the villus ; b, matrix or basis of the same ; c, 
dilated blind extremity of the central lacteal ; d, trunk of the same. 

The lacteals, or chyliferous vessels, appear to commence 
within these processes by a single tube, which begins near 



158 



DIGESTION. 



the point of each villus by a blind (and often somewhat 
dilated) extremity, and passes down its axis to open into 
the network of these vessels occupying the submucous 
areolar tissue. The diameter of the central canal is, in 
Man, about one sixth that of the villus itself : a proportion 

Fig. 24. 




Villus denuded of epithelium, treated with acetic ac 
kitten. Magnified 350 diameters, 

a, outline of the villus ; b\ nuclei beneath this ; c. nuclei of the unstriped 
muscle ; d, roundish nuclei in the centre of the villus. 



often doubled at the terminal dilatation. It has a 
tinct wall of exceedingly fine (and apparently structure! 
membrane. Occasionally, the tube seems to bifurcate as 



MUSCLE OF VILLI. 159 

it ascends the villus. But this appearance (and still 
more that of the network described by many observers) 
is probably an optical illusion ; save perhaps in the longer 
and more conical villi. 

The muscular substratum of the villus is a thin hollow 
cone, which in form closely follows the general outline of 
the process itself. Hence, from whatever side it may be 
examined, it is visible as a double layer ; which is placed 
immediately on both sides of the central lacteal, and 
is surrounded by most of the vessels, as well as by much 
of the granular basis. 

The action of this contractile apparatus is unknown. 
Doubtless an offshoot of that general expanse of unstriped 
muscle which pervades the mucous membrane of the 
whole alimentary canal, it probably has a function analo- 
gous to that of this layer elsewhere ; and, indeed, co- 
ordinate with it. That this function is chiefly related to 
the static or passive mechanism of the mucous coat, has 
been already (p. 136) conjectured. The little we know 
of the action of -the same element in the skin confirms 
this view. But its anatomical relations in the villus to 
the blind and dilated end of the central lacteal — of which 
it thus forms a muscular or contractile envelope — have 
raised the suspicion, that it propels the chyle contained 
in this canal. 

Whether such a process really obtains must be deter- 
mined by future researches; which ought especially to 
notice the connection of this muscular layer with that of 
the mucous membrane generally, Meanwhile we may 
notice that, as Koelliker justly remarks, the exercise of 



180 DIGESTION. 

an active force of propulsion by these longitudinal fibres 
would imply their alternate contraction and relaxation. 
To this we may add, that from analogy it is probable that 
an irritation of the sympathetic might excite the latter 
of these changes, just as the stimulus of distention or 
stretching might well bring about the former. But 
nothing short of such a remittent and alternate action 
would destroy the claims of the absorptive act itself to 
be considered the chief force which propels the chyle : 
since, in any other case, the muscular apparatus would 
only limit and remove that distention of the lacteal, which 
absorption had previously effected against an opposing mus- 
cular contraction. It is thus left in doubt how far this 
apparatus originates the mechanical force which propels the 
chyle ; how far it merely controls, regulates, or transfers, 
an independent and more recondite force at certain in- 
tervals of time. 

It has indeed been attempted to verify the action of 
this delicate muscular apparatus during life in some of the 
domestic animals. Grruby and Delafomi are confirmed 
by Bruecke and Koelliker in their observation, under these 
circumstances, of an alternate shortening: and lengthening 
of the villus : a change so rapid and marked, as to be 
doubtless due to a corresponding contraction and re- 
laxation of these its unstriped fibres. But the phenomena 
of such vivisections cannot safely be accepted as those of 
the natural state. 

Such a caution is still more applicable to the contractions 
by which the villi share in that irregular intestinal move- 
ment — a kind of rigor mortis — already (p. 139) described. 



COXTKACTIOXS OF VILLI. 



161 



Exposed immediately after death, they gradually become 
shorter and wider ; while their surface is usually thrown 
into transverse wrinkles and folds. Transmitted light 
shows these folds to consist of the epithelial layer, which 
has separated from the basement membrane at the pro- 
jections between adjacent wrinkles. Sometimes the ad- 
Fig. 25. 



|M»»»«:sH5iji;i 



III*; • s.:::M 



!"'•' l m 




Villi contracted and shortened so as to offer circular or transverse wrinkles. 
From the small intestine of the Dog shortly after death. Magnified 100 
diameters ; and examined by reflected light. 

hesion of the same layer to the free end of the villus 
forms, at this point, a kind of shallow funnel, which is 
bounded by the neighbouring separated cells. In other 
instances, the free end of the villus is withdrawn from its 

M 



162 



DIGESTION. 



epithelial investment by the contraction of its muscular 
layer so uniformly, as to leave the whole of the cell- 
growth covering this part uninjured, smooth, and empty, 
like the finger of a glove. Often, however, a few cells 
are here and there detached. 

Fig. 26. 



B 




Similar villi as seen by transmitted light. The villus on the left has 
partially withdrawn by contraction from its investing epithelium, wku 
thus left entire, like the finger of a glove. 

a, epithelium of the villus; b, granular matrix or substance of the same. 

All these appearances are obviously due to a contraction 
of the muscular constituent of the villus within its more 
or less separated cell-growth. And the movements which 



VILLI DURING DIGESTION. 163 

accompany their occurrence often resemble those seen 
during life : consisting of shortening or elongation, some- 
times complicated by lateral displacements. Their dura- 
tion rarely exceeds a few minutes. 

During the digestive act, the villi undergo notable 
changes. They receive a copious and sudden afflux of 
blood ; become larger and softer ; and acquire a greater 
opacity, which renders them whiter by reflected, darker by 
transmitted, light. The cytoblasts occupying their interior 
are also greatly increased in number and distinctness. 
And, lastly, after the ingestion of any food which includes 
the ordinary fatty ingredient of a mixed diet, a part of 
this alimentary constituent is also found in their interior. 

The first step towards this absorption of fatty matter 
into the villus consists in an entry into its epithelial in- 
vestment : each columnar cell of which is gradually rilled 
by a large oil-globule. The change first involves scattered 
cells; and, by rendering them more refractile, causes a 
curious contrast of bright spots and darker intervals (Fig. 
27) on the outer surface of the villus. Gradually, how- 
ever, the whole of this surface shares in the change. 

The next step consists in the minute subdivision of the 
single oil-globule now contained in the epithelial cell. 
The details of this (quasi emulsive) process are unknown : 
but its result is to give the cell a dark granular appear- 
ance, which a close inspection can distinguish as due to 
separate fatty molecules of great minuteness. These mo- 
lecules are next found in the granular substance of the 
villus itself, chiefly near its surface and apex. From 
thence they soon penetrate the central lacteal trunk ; 



164 



DIGESTION. 



which they sometimes define as a slender column of dark 
fatty granules. 

That this process is in part a physical imbibition, can 
scarcely be doubted. Matteucci and Valentin have proved 
that diffusion occurs between a dilute alkaline solution, and 

Fig. 27. 




Villus of the Dog about two hours after feeding : showing the entry of fat 
into scattered epithelia on its surface. Magnified about 400 diameters. 

«, a, outline of the villus, formed by epitlielia with their ordinary contents: 
b, b, epithelia rendered bright and refractile by their fatty contents. 



a faintly alkaline fatty emulsion, when separated by tissues 
like those of an animal's bladder. And the circumstances 
actually present in the villus are more favourable to such 
a transit than those attending the experiments of these oh- 



ABSORPTION OF FAT. 16o 

servers. For the alkalinity of the lymph and blood some- 
times exceeds that of the solution they used. And the 
scarcely conceivable degree in which the tenuity of the cell- 
wall of the villus exceeds that of such thick and compound 
membranes as those which form the diffusive partition in 
these experiments, would enormously favour the transit of 
the separated fluids. Furthermore, those independent forces 
which probably aid the continuous movement of the chyle, 
constitute an additional advantage possessed by the living 
villus over the inert endosmometer. 

On the other hand, the absorption of fatty matters im- 
plies other and more recondite processes. For the fatty 
molecules of the chyle have reactions which prove them to 
be still oily, and not saponified, as are the substances 
transferred through the membranes used in the diffusive 
experiments alluded to. And while the position of the 
capillary plexus, and the rapidity and bulk of its stream, 
render it probable that any merely diffusive action would dis- 
proportionately affect the blood — which indeed, as already 
stated, is often more alkaline than the chyle — the reverse 
seems to be the case ; a larger quantity of fat being taken 
up by the lacteals than by the bloodvessels. The above 
view is further confirmed by the effects of violent inflam- 
mation, and of great interference with the bloodvessels, in 
preventing the formation of chyle : as well as by that 
strict natural limit which seems to check all further ab 
sorption of fatty matter : — so that, when its amount in any 
part of the intestine exceeds what the villi can take up, the 
residue is passed on to the succeeding parts ; failing absorp- 
tion by which, it is discharged in the excrements. 

31 3 



166 DIGESTIOX. 

Follicles* — The structures to which it is desirable to 
restrict this term are essentially closed sacs, analogous to 
those represented in the stomach by the lenticular glands. 
(See p. 109.) They pervade the whole intestinal canal in 
two forms : solitary and agminate follicles ; the latter 
being, as their name implies, little more than aggregations 
or clusters of the former. 

The agminate f follicles are generally scattered over 
the small intestines in about twenty clusters. Their shape 
is commonly an ellipse, in length about twice its width. 
They are situated along the free margin of the bowel, 
opposite the attachment of its mesentery ; in an extent 
usually corresponding to its lower three-fifths, or the ileum, 
of which they may be regarded as characteristic. But they 
are sometimes sparingly scattered throughout the lower 
part of the jejunum also; and, more rarely, extend up- 
wards through this segment even to the duodenum. In 
such cases their number is from twice to thrice that given 
above. Still, amid all their variations of number, extent* 
and size, they retain a predominant relation with the lower 
end of the ileum. For they are not only both larger and 
more numerous here ; but while, elsewhere, their length is 
rarely more than an inch, the immediate neighbourhood 



* The etymology of this word not only permits its application to these 
closed sacs, but suggests its restriction to them, and its abandonment as a 
designation for the tubes (p. 145.). 

f Oftener termed Peycrs or Peycrian patches ; a name which probably 
clings to them, in consequence of its uniting all the disadvantages of uu- 
couthness, irrelevance, and (so far as it awards their discovery to an ana- 
tomist who was anticipated therein by our own countryman. Grew) 
inaccuracy. 



AGMINATE FOLLICLES. 



1G7 



of the ileo-caecal valve is often occupied by an irregular 
cluster, with a length ranging from two to four inches,* and 
a width which amounts to two-thirds or three-fourths the 
circumference of the bowel. 

The surface of such a cluster, which is raised above the 
general mucous surface, is occupied by a number of ir- 
regular shallow depressions (6, Fig. 28) at tolerably equal 




Agminate follicles as seen by reflected light. Magnified 4 diameters. 

Koelliker. ) 



(After 



a, general mucous surface with villi ; b, depressions leading to the several 
follicles ; c, intervals between them, covered by small villi. 



distances from each other. The floors of these depressions 
or pits are formed by a corresponding number of grains, 
of about the size of a millet-seed; the greater thickness 

M 4 



168 DIGESTIOX. 

and opacity of which, as contrasted with the adjoining in- 
testinal walls, often renders the cluster distinctly visible by 
transmitted light, even when viewed through the peri- 
toneal and muscular coats. 

Each cluster contains from 20 to 200 follicles, according 
to its size. The pits over the several follicles do not lead 

Fig. 29. 




Agminate follicles in a state of distention. Magnified about 5 diav. 

{After Boehm.) 

a, general mucous surface of the ileum ; b, b, opaque grains corresponding 
to the several follicles. 

to apertures, but end on a smooth surface, of which the 
convexity diminishes their own depth. In their inter 
are found tubes and villi, with somewhat modified charao 



FOLLICLES. 169 

ters. For the tubes immediately around each pit have a 
circular arrangement, so as to form a ring of ten to twenty 
apertures, with a very characteristic appearance, suggestive 
of pressure or distention. The adjacent villi also often 
appear to radiate from the centre of the pit. And both 
they, and the villi more equi-distant from the neighbouring 
follicles, differ from the villi seen on those parts of the 

Fie. 30. 




Portion of a cluster of agminate follicles. 

a, a, follicles encircled by apertures of the intestinal tubes in the form of 
a ring; b, short and obtuse villi, occupying the intervals of the follicles ; 
c, apertures of intestinal tubes, opening irregularly in these intervals. 

intestine which are unoccupied by these clusters, in being 
fewer, shorter, of more regular form, and often confluent 
at their bases. (Figs. 30, 31.) 

Careful dissection and examination will show that each 
follicle is a closed sac ; with a roundish form, save where 
its conical apex is directed towards the general mucous 
surface ; and a diameter from one- to three-fifths of an inch. 
Its base rests on tlje muscular coat, attached by an areolar 
tissue like that of the loose sub-mucous network in which 
the follicle is imbedded by the greater part of its depth. 
Its bluntly conical summit ascends between the lower 



170 DIGESTIOX. 

ends of the adjacent tubes ; and terminates, below their 
middle, at the floor of the pit into which the general 
mucous surface is depressed here. The exceedingly delicate 
layer of tissue intervening between the follicle and the 
intestinal cavity consists of a small quantity of an indis- 
tinctly fibrous structure, which encloses some capillaries, 

Fig. 31. 



' " "-'SM 




Plan of an agminate follicle, as seen by a vertical section. Magnified 

40 diameters. 

a, short and conical villi surrounding the follicle ; b, intestinal tubes in 
the same situation ; c, muscular stratum of the mucous membrane ; d. sub- 
mucous areolar tissue, in which the follicle is chiefly situated : e, circular 
layer of the muscular coat; f longitudinal layer of the same ; g. peritoneal 
coat; h, follicle enclosing nuclear contents; /, apex of the follicle pro- 
jecting into the cavity of the bowel. 

and seems to be covered by the ordinary columnar epithe- 
lium. It is so easily ruptured by disease, putrefaction, 
and mechanical violence, that many have regarded the 



VESSELS OF FOLLICLES. ]71 

follicle as opening here by a permanent orifice, or as easily 
acquiring one by a natural dehiscence. 

The capsule of the follicle is a structure which differs 
from basement membrane in being much thicker, and in 
possessing an indistinctly fibrous texture. Its smooth 
outer surface exhibits elastic fibres, and is attached by 
areolar tissue to the surrounding submucous structures. 
The vessels offer a peculiar arrangement. The small 
arteries of the submucous plexus send branches among the 
several follicles of each cluster, so as to form a network of 
minute arteries, which chiefly occupy a horizontal plane. 
These break up into numerous capillaries, which surround 
the membranous capsule with an irregular network, de- 
ficient only at the apex by which the follicle projects into 
the intestine; where its long loops, bending back upon 
themselves, leave a central space uncovered by vessels. 
And Frei has shown that a similar arrangement extends 
throughout the whole remaining depth of the follicle ; the 
capsule being everywhere penetrated by a number of 
minute capillaries (Fig. 32), which leave the former net- 
work at right angles, and reach nearly to the centre of the 
follicle before looping back to its exterior. The uppermost 
of these capillaries unite to form the radicles of one or two 
veins of thrice their own diameter, which descend vertically 
through the follicle, receiving no further branches until they 
reach the submucous plexus. The contents of the follicle 
form a pale, greyish, opalescent pulp; which is composed 
of a proteinous substance closely akin to albumen, and 
reveals, to a careful examination, a fluid mingled with 
cells. The latter, of very variable character, are reducible 



172 DIGESTIOX. 

to two kinds: cells indicative of the several stages by 
which blood-corpuscles, apparently of casual extravasation, 
seem to recede towards solution on the one hand ; and a 
multiform and specific cell-growth, on the other. In this 
growth Koelliker has found traces of an endogenous mul- 

Fiff. 32. 




Vessels of the three agminate follicles of the Babbit ; as seen by a horizon- 
tal section, at about the raid elk of their height, {After Koelliker ; from 

an injection by Frei.) 

a, a, a, minute vessels surrounding the capsule of the agminate follicles 
b, b, b, delicate capillary loops penetrating their interior, and bending back 
from c, c, c, the centres of the follicles. 

tiplication of cells ; as well as of the splitting of the wall 
of a cytoblast, so as to isolate, and remove, an outer cell 
membrane. In other cases, he has noticed what seems to 
be a converse process of regress or decay, in the form 



OFFICE OF FOLLICLES. 173 

of large cells filled with angular corpuscles, which are 
apparently produced from the ordinary cells of the pulp, 
and lose their nuclei prior to a complete disappearance. 
The exact function of these follicles is unknown. 

But, composed as they are of innumerable cells, in contact 
with a large vascular surface, it is in the reaction of these 
minute agents on the rich and copious nutritional fluid ex- 
suded from the adjacent blood, that we may presumably 
find their chief office. And the various stages of cell-life 
simultaneously present would indicate that the cells have 
the power not merely of selecting and appropriating ma- 
terials, but of producing them ; and that by a process of 
metamorphosis which, directly or indirectly, consumes their 
own tissue, and thus involves their own decay and removal. 
In this respect the agminate follicles may be regarded as 
having a structure and function akin to that of the vascular 
glands ; and as selecting from their nutritional fluid certain 
constituents, which, after undergoing certain changes in 
their interior, are returned thence into the general current 
of the blood. 

But the relation of these follicles to the intestinal 
cavity complicates this view by suggesting a correspond- 
ing and two-fold modification. The materials on which 
their enclosed cells act may possibly be derived from the 
various contents of the bowel, as well as from the blood. 
Their products may also be excreted by the intestine, 
as well as returned into the closed system of the blood- 
vessels. And since the degree in which the intestine forms 
such a channel of ingress and egress for the follicles must 
depend chiefly on the directness and efficiency of its com- 



1 74 DIGESTION. 

munication with the follicular cavities, it is to be presumed 
that any such close contiguity as obtains in the human sub- 
ject would permit an efficient transudation of this two-fold 
kind. But where, as in the Calf, the cavities of the intes- 
tine and of some of these follicles are separated by a thick 
"compound membrane, the transit in either direction is pro- 
bably reduced to a very small amount. 

The follicles seem also to be related to a third structure : 
namely, to the lacteal system. That analogy of the follicle 
to the vascular gland above noticed, is far surpassed by 
the closer resemblance between the follicles of the intestine 
and those of the lymphatic glands ; both enclosing vessels, 
and a cell-growth, within the limitary membrane which 
forms their wall. And though neither have lacteals yet 
been verified within the intestinal follicles, nor any direct 
communication found between their cavities and those of 
the neighbouring lacteals, yet it seems certain, both that 
these vessels occupy the agminate follicles in numbers quite 
disproportionate to the few and small villi present here, 
and that they are arranged in the closest proximity with 
the follicular contents. 

How far these follicles really share the nature and office 
of lymphatic glands is, however, still in doubt. In any 
case, their very variable number and size indicates that 
(like the similar structures of the tonsils and stomach) their 
function is probably one which can be vicariously discharged 
by other allied organs. From their number and size, too, 
we may conjecture that their quantitative influence on the 
chemistry of the organism is not great. Their changes in 
health and disease confirm those relations to the vascular and 



DUODENAL GLANDS. 175 

lymphatic systems above deduced for them. Their swollen 
condition during digestion may be attributed equally to the 
increase of intestinal absorption, and to the afflux of blood, 
then occurring. Their swelling during the drain of cholera 
may perhaps also claim the latter of these causes. And 
finally, that close parallel between the disease of these 
follicles and of the neighbouring mesenteric glands, which 
is seen in phthisis and typhoid fever, confirms the analogy 
between the two structures. 

The " solitary " follicles are exactly like those grouped 
to form the " agminate" save in their not being surrounded 
by a circle of orifices of tubes, and in their often sustaining 
villi of ordinary size and shape. They are sometimes 
difficult to find, in consequence of their undistended state ; 
an explanation which probably applies to those cases in 
which they are alleged to be altogether absent. Whether 
that excessive development of them which is also some- 
times seen must be regarded as really morbid, or as a mere 
casualty, or even as a kind of collective hypertrophy, re- 
mains for the present doubtful. In the large intestine, 
they are not only more numerous, but attain a greater size ; 
and are more deeply imbedded in the submucous areolar 
tissue. The form of the pit or fossa which overlies their 
highest part is also somewhat modified, widening as it 
leaves the general mucous surface, to pass downwards 
between the intestinal tubes, and to end, near their ex- 
tremities, on the bulging surface of the follicle. 

Duodenal, or Brunn's Glands. — The remaining consti- 
tuent of the compound intestinal membrane is limited to 
a very small fraction of the canal : namely, to the duo- 



M6 DIGESTION. 

denum ; of which segment it is thus, as it were, the cha- 
racteristic structure. The duodenal or racemose glands 
are small roundish granules, which occupy the submucous 
areolar tissue ; and open by a duct, which passes through 
the mucous membrane to the general intestinal cavity. 
Immediately below the pylorus, they have a diameter of 
1 to 1J lines; and are so close to each other, as to form a 
kind of layer around the bowel. Lower down, they 
dwindle to half or one-third this size ; at the same time 
that they gradually become more sparing and scattered, 
until, in the inferior transverse position of the duodenum, 
they finally cease altogether. 

The duct of each opens on the free surface of the bowel, 
mostly in the depressions which separate the rudimentary 
villi present here. The valvules conniventes are not per- 
meated by them. Elsewhere, however, the general mucous 
surface is studded pretty uniformly by their apertures, of 
which two or more sometimes closely adjoin each other. 
Their minute structure is precisely like that of the conglo- 
bate salivary glands already noticed (p. 73). Their lobules, 
aggregated into a mass by an envelope of areolar tissue, 
are shown by further dissection to consist of smaller ones, 
which resemble a bunch of grapes (Fig. 33), and consti- 
tute the acini of the gland. These acini, which average 
1 -300th of an inch in diameter, are the irregularly polyhe- 
dral (rather than spherical) dilatations (Fig. 34.) which end 
in cylindrical tubes of about two-thirds this size. The re- 
peated unions of these tubes converge into the duct; the 
columnar cell-growth lining which near its intestinal aper- 
ture merges into the flat, small, tessellated epithelium 



DUODENAL GLANDS. 



177 



specific to such glands in its ramifications. They secrete 
a viscid, structureless mucus, with an alkaline reaction. 
• As respects their office, their secretion undoubtedly has the 



Fig. 33. 




Brunns or duodenal gland, as seen in a vertical section of the duodenum. 
Magnified 40 diameters. 

a, intestinal tubes ; b, muscular stratum of the mucous membrane ; c, c, 
acini of the duodenal gland which occupies the submucous areolar tissue ; 
d, transverse layer of the muscular coat ; e, longitudinal layer of the mus- 
cular coat ; /, peritoneal tunic of the bowel. 

capacity of converting starch into sugar. Its other pro- 
perties remain undecided, the structural analogies which 
suggest for it salivary and pancreatic functions leaving it 

N 



178 DIGESTION. 

very doubtful whether it can be regarded as akin to the 
intestinal juice. 

Fig. 34. 








Diagram of two ducts of a lobule. 

a, Efferent duct of lobule ; b, side branches ; c, vesicles in situ ; d, the 
same separated, and the duct unfolded. 

In addition to the secretions of the foregoing structures, 
the small intestine receives, at its upper part, the copious 
products of two large and important accessory organs : the 
pancreas, and the liver. 

The pancreas (pa, Fig. 35) is a soft white gland, weigh- 
ing about 5 oz., measuring about 5 cubic inches, and 
placed in the concavity of the duodenum, nearly at the 
centre of whose arch it opens by an orifice common to it 
and the bile-duct. In its minute anatomy it so closely 
corresponds to Brunn's and the salivary glands already 
described, as to require no separate description. The 
arrangement of its lobes ; the softness, scantiness, and 
laxity of their areolar envelopes ; the anatomy of its duct ; 
and the distribution of its vessels ; — of which the veins join 
the postal system — are features of subordinate import. 

Its secretion, conjecturally amounting to about half a 
pint daily in the human subject, is a structureless, clear, 
colourless, viscid liquid, with a specific gravity of about 
1030, and a large solid content which dried at a heat of 



PAXCEEATIC JUICE. 170 



120° F., forms about one tenth of its total quantity. It 
appears to be poured out in largest quantity about two 
hours after a meal, and to intermit in the fasting state. 
Chemically, it has a strong alkaline reaction, which appears 
chiefly due to soda ; and its inorganic constituents, which 
constitute about one-tenth of the total solids, include a 
large (three-fourths) ingredient of chloride of sodium, with 



Piff. 




d 

a 

Shape and arrangement of the duodenum and pancreas, eis seen on raising 
the stomach and liver. 

st, stomach ; p, its pyloric valve ; I, liver ; g, gall-bladder ; d, duodenum ; 
1, 2, 3, its first, second, and third portions ; pa, pancreas ; h, head of the 
pancreas, by which it is received into the concavity of the duodenum ; 
sp, spleen ; a, aorta, behind the inferior transverse portion of the duodenum ; 
sm, the superior mesenteric artery, in front of it. 

small quantities of soda, lime, magnesia, and iron. Its 
organic residue, which is soluble in water but precipi- 
table by alcohol, consists of a substance with an ultimate 
composition allied to albumen, and contains a certain 
quantity of free carbonate of lime. It rapidly undergoes 
spontaneous decomposition at ordinary temperatures ; a cir- 

N '2 



ISO DIGESTION. 

cumstance which distinguishes it from pepsine (p. 120) and 
ptyalin (p. 80), to which it might otherwise be regarded 
as offering close analogies. 

Its exact share in the digestive process is, in some 
respects, still undecided ; not only as regards those compli- 
cations of its effects suggested by the situation in which 
its secretion is admixed with the other contents of the 
digestive canal, but even as regards those more specific 
influences on the chief constituents (p. 52) of the food 
which experiment might be expected to verify. 

1. Its action on starch is the most incontestable of these 
effects. The secretion and infusion of the gland convert 
starch into sugar with a rapidity and energy equalling 
the similar conversion operated by saliva; which latter, 
indeed, the pancreatic juice may be regarded as surpass- 
ing, in the fact that no admixture (p. 84) of any other 
secretion seems necessary to bring about this maximum of 
energy. It must further be noticed that the change occurs 
even at low (64° F.) temperatures, and is utterly unac- 
companied by any trace of putrefaction. 

2. Its action on fat, though perhaps in some respects 
more questionable, has been shown by the researches of 
Bernard to constitute another important branch of its office. 
Out of the body, the pancreatic juice separates most of the 
neutral fats into their acids and bases. In the body, how- 
ever, as is seen in the neutral and combined state of the 
fatty matters of the chyle, this change seems not to occur ; 
being probably prevented by the admixture of gastric 
juice, as it is certainly capable of being prevented by the 
presence of free lactic or other acid. But a more impor- 



ACTION OF PAXCREATIC JUICE. 181 

tant change effected by this gland in the fat of the chyle 
has been deduced by Bernard, from his admirable researches 
on the pancreatic juice. He has shown conclusively, that 
the admixture of this secretion to fat converts it into an 
emulsion of the most complete and intimate kind, such as 
does not separate again, even on protracted standing ; and 
thus amounts to a minute division, going far to account for 
the remarkable change of the fat which enters the villus 
(p. 163) during digestion. This emulsifying process, which 
may be seen out of the body, also takes place within the 
canal ; being bounded above by the entry of the pancreatic 
duct, in animals killed at a proper interval after the diges- 
tion of fatty food ; or deficient altogether when the duct is 
either obstructed, or diverted from the intestine. The 
latter contingency had, indeed, been long foreshadowed by 
the occasional results of disease ; in which large or pro- 
found lesions of the pancreas had occasionally been found 
associated with such a complete failure in the absorption 
of alimentary fats, as allowed it to be passed unchanged, 
and in large quantities, with the stools. 

3. Its action on the various protein-compounds has not 
yet been established. But there are striking facts which 
vaguely indicate some important relation between this se- 
cretion and these constituents of the food. It is true that 
the fresh pancreatic juice, and the infusion of the gland- 
substance, in all stages of digestion, are quite incapable of 
dissolving albumen. But both the secretion and infusion 
of the gland acquire this power so rapidly in their progress 
towards decomposition, and in advanced stages of this pro- 
cess, dissolve albumen in a quantity and rapidity so closely 

N 3 



182 DIGESTION. 

akin to the copious and energetic solution of albumen 
effected by the secretion and infusion of the stomach, as to 
promise the discovery of some valuable physiological clue 
to both these processes of solution as the reward of future 
research. The more so that (as Dr. Corvisart has pointed 
out) the resulting solution has many of the reactions of 
peptone ; and that the solution of albumen in this man- 
ner is (as I have shown) specific to the pancreas, in the 
sense of being utterly absent even from those salivary 
organs (parotid, submaxillary, sublingual, &c.) which are in 
other respects most closely allied to the pancreas both 
in structure and function. Nevertheless, the distinction 
between the putrid and unstable solution into which the 
secretion and infusion of decomposing pancreas convert 
albumen, and the perfectly fresh and stable peptone of the 
gastric juice, as well as the contrast of those circumstances 
which conditionate the act of solution itself, justify our 
denying the claims of the pancreas to rank as a solvent 
of albumen and other protein-compounds in the healthy 
digestion of the living body ; until it is shown how these 
circumstances, in themselves generally so injurious to 
health and Life, and therefore conclusive against the 
normal character of the act which involves them, are 
modified or prevented during the ordinary action of the 
pancreas as an agent in the digestive process. 

The liver (I, Figs. 12, 35, 36), a large organ which occu- 
pies the upper part of the abdominal cavitj 7 , being suspended 
from the diaphragm so as to overlap the stomach, duode- 
num, and first bend of the colon, is characterised by having 



THE LIVES. 



183 



a two-fold supply of blood : one, the ordinary arterial fluid, 
which is distributed to it (h, Fig. 12) in a quantity so small 



Ffc 36. 




The under or concave surface of the liver. 

Nos. 1, 1, the anterior border ; 2, 2, the posterior border; 3, the notch 
upon the anterior border; 4, 4, the longitudinal fissure containing the 
fibrous cord of the round ligament ; 5, the fissure for the ductus venosus ; 
6, the transverse fissure ; 7, the point of union of the three fissures, the 
longitudinal, the transverse, and that for the ductus venosus ; 9, the portal 
vein in the transverse fissure, the hepatic artery, and the trunk of the 
ductus communis choledochus ; 11, the cystic duct; 12, the gall-bladder; 
13, 13, the inferior vena cava passing through its fissure ; 14, the cord of 
the ductus venosus, joining the inferior cava as that vessel emerges from 
the substance of the liver; 15, part of the oval space on the posterior 
border of the liver; 16, the right lobe; 17, the left lobe; 18, the lobulus 
quadratus; 19, the pons hepatis; 20, the lobus Spigelii; 21, the lobus 
caudatus. 



as probably does but suffice to supply the branches of its 
duct ; the other, in much larger amount, those venous con- 
tents of the portal trunk upon which it operates in the 
discharge of its function. The latter channel is the con- 
flux of two veins : one of which brings the venous blood 

N 4 



184 



DIGESTION. 



furnished by the spleen ; while the other contributes that 
much larger, but more irregular and fluctuating quantity 
of blcod 5 which is derived from the veins of the intestines 




A transverse section of a large portal canal and its vessels. The lobules are 
in a steite of general congestion, their central portions being more congested 
than their marginal portions. — Fram Kieman's paper. 

No. 1, Superficial lobules forming the parietes o_f the canal. In some 
the intralobular vein does not extend to the surface of the canal ; this ap- 
pearance depends upon the direction in which the incision is made. 2. 
The portal vein. 3, Vaginal branches arising from the vein and dividing 
into interlobular branches which enter the interlobular spaces. 4, Hepatic 
duct. It is seen to give off vaginal branches which divide into interlo- 
bular ducts, the latter enter the interlobular spaces. 5, The hepatic ar- 
tery ; it is seen giving off vaginal branches which divide into interlobular 
branches, and the latter enter the spaces with the branches of the portal 
vein and hepatic duct., 6, Three interlobular vessels, a duct, vein, and 
artery, entering each interlobular space. 7, A part of the vaginal plexus. 
8, 8, Glisson's capsule, which completely surrounds the vessels. 

and the stomach, and is charged with the various substances 
newly absorbed from the alimentary canal. (Fig. 48, p. 224.") 



THE LIVER. 



185 



The liver is a brownish red mass, which averages a bulk 
of about 90 cubic inches, a weight of about 4 lbs., and a 
specific gravity of about 1070. To its under surface is 
attached a gall-bladder or reservoir for its secretion: as 
are also the main trunks of the vessels, nerves, and duct 
which ramify in its interior. The markings and irregu- 
larities connected with these have received special names 
(Fig. 36), of interest chiefly to descriptive anatomy. 

Fig. 38. 




A longitudinal section of a sublobular vein. 

Nos. 1, 1, longitudinal sections of lobules, presenting a foliated appear- 
ance. 2, 2, superficial lobules terminating by a flat extremity upon the sur- 
face of the liver ; 3, 3, the capsular surface of a lobule ; 4, the bases of the 
lobules seen through the coats of the vein and forming the canal in which 
the sublobular vein is contained ; 5, the intralobular vein commencing by 
minute venules at a short distance from the capsular surface of the lobule ; 
6, the intralobular vein of a superficial lobule commencing directly from 
the surface ; 7, the openings of the intralobular veins which issue from 
the centre of the base of each lobule; 8, the interlobular fissures seen 
through the coats of the sublobular vein ; 9, interlobular spaces. 

The " capsule of Grlisson " is an investment of fibrous or 
connective tissue, which contains little of the yellow or 



186 



DIGESTIOX. 



elastic element, and is covered by peritoneum of the ordin- 
ary structure. It sends in processes, which unite with the 

Fig. 39. 




Longitudinal section of a small portal vein and canal. — After Kiernan. 

a, Portions of the canal from which the vein is removed to show that it 
is surrounded by lobules similar to those upon the external surface of the 
liver, b, That side of the portal vein which is in contact with the canal. 
c, That side of the vein which is separated from the canal by the hepatic 
artery and duct, by the capsule of Grlisson surrounding them, and by the 
vaginal plexus, d, The internal surface of the portal vein, through which 
is seen the outline of the lobules, and the openings of the interlobular veins 
which correspond with the interlobular spaces. Upon the opposite side (c) 
the portal vein being separated from the portal canal there are no inter- 
lobular veins, c, The openings of smaller portal veins, f Vaginal veins 
giving off branches in the portal canal and forming a plexus, g, h, The 
hepatic artery and duct giving off vaginal branches. 

similar tissue interspersed through the hepatic substance, 
as a sparing sheath to the vessels and ducts. 

The portal vein ramifies in the liver by repeated bifur- 






HEPATIC LOBULES. 



187 



cations, each of which is accompanied by a branch of the 
duct and artery ; all three vessels being enveloped in a 



Fiff. 40. 




Lobules, showing the portal venous plexus. — After Kiernetn. 

a a, Interlobular veins, forming venous circles, which, when examined 
with a higher power, are seen to be vascular plexuses, occupying the inter- 
lobular fissure, b. The lobular venous plexus enclosing circular and ovoid 
spaces, the " acini " of Malpighi. c, The intralobular vein, collecting the 
blood from the lobular venous plexus. 

common sheath of connective tissue, thence named the 
portal canal. The smallest branches of all three occupy 
the intervals of the hepatic lobules : — small grains of 
liver-substance, which are seen on the outer surface of the 
organ, appearing through the capsule, as roundish or 
polyhedral masses about ^V i ncn i n diameter ; and which 
extend through its whole interior, being isolated from each 
other by common partitions of connective tissue, the 
sparing stroma of these vessels (Figs. 37, 38, 39). 



188 



DIGESTION. 



The small branches of the portal vein between these 
lobules {interlobular, a, Fig. 40) break up into a capil- 

Fig. 41. 




Network of hepatic cells with its capillaries, magnified 3o0 diameters. 
the Pig. — After Koellikt r. 

lary network ; the vessels of which, of large (-^oVo inch | 
size, and close proximity to each other, converge to 
unite in a vein (intralobular, Xos. 5, 6, Fig. 38, and 
c 9 Fig 40), which occupies the axis of the lobule, to 
the several projections of which it gives one or two short 
branches. These intralobular veins open into larger veins 
(sublobular\ upon which they are mostly seated by their 
bases (Fig. 38), and which converge to form, by their succes- 
sive unions, the hepatic vein; which joins the vena a 
and thus empties its blood into the right side of the heart. 



HEPATIC CELL-GKOWTH. 189 

The interstices of this capillary network appear to be 
occupied exclusively by a mass of cells (Figs. 41, 42.); 

Fig. 42. 




Vciw, from nature, of the network of hematic cells, and smallest interlobular 
ducts from the human subject. Diagram of the connection between the 
cells and ducts. After Koelliker. Magnified 350 diameters. 

a, Interlobular duct, b, The hepatic cells, c, Interspaces corresponding 

to capillaries. 

which constitute the parenchyma of the liver, and are so 
moulded around the walls of the capillaries, as to fill up their 
meshes, each cell being in contact with capillaries by some 
part of its surface. The cells themselves, about -py^o-th 
inch in diameter, are polyhedral or angular (often some- 
what flattened) as though from close packing ; they are 
bounded by a distinct wall, and contain a nucleus, (usually 
enclosing one or more nucleoli), and a viscid yellowish 
granular liquid, in appearance closely resembling bile. The 



190 DIGESTION. 

fatty granules or globules, and the yellow colouring matters 
also often found in these cells, seem to be mainly attribut- 
able, to disease or commencing decomposition. 

The relation of these cells to those minute interlobular 
canals (a, Fig. 42) which form the apparent commencements 
of the hepatic duct, still remains in obscurity. On the whole, 
the opinion of Koelliker — that the latter abut directly on 
the outermost of the hepatic cells, the rows of which take 
somewhat of the radiating arrangement of the capillaries 
whose meshes they fill — seems to be the most probable. 
The canals are lined by a small polygonal epithelium ; 
which in arrangement, shape, size, nucleus, and contents, 
somewhat resembles that of the salivary glands. (Fig. 3, 
p. 75.) In passing from the smaller to the larger of 
these interlobular bile-ducts, their transparent meuibr 
propria gradually acquires a fibrous structure, and their 
cell growth becomes more cylindrical in form. 

The hepatic artery (Fig. 37, 5 ; Fig. 39, h\ which is 
distributed mainly to the walls of these ducts, anastom 
in the interlobular areolar tissue with branches which reach 
the surface of the liver from the neighbouring arteries of 
the diaphragm. Its veins open at once into the adjacent 
portal branches, to be distributed, through these, to the 
general capillary network of the parenchyma. 

The function of the liver is two-fold : the secretion of 
bile, on the one hand ; the elaboration of blood, on the 
other. By both these functions it is related to the diges- 
tive act : by the former, inasmuch as the admixture of bile 
in the intestine with the various other secretions, and with 
the food present here, gives rise to reactions which directly 



BILE. 191 

influence the digestive solution; by the latter, inasmuch 
as the portal blood, which receives the greater part of those 
alimentary materials capable of absorption, passes to the 
liver, to undergo the action of this gland. 

The bile is a structureless, transparent, yellow liquid, 
with a bitter taste, a peculiar smell, a specific gravity of 
about 1020, and a somewhat viscid consistence. It not only 
resists putrefaction, but is antiseptic when added to other 
organic mixtures. When first secreted, it is neutral or 
somewhat alkaline. Any marked acidity is due to disease, 
or to decomposition subsequent to secretion. A scanty and 
casual admixture of cell-growth is often found in the 
hepatic bile. In the gall-bladder, the bile becomes some- 
what more concentrated or less watery ; deepens in colour 
to a greenish hue ; and is rendered more viscid by an ad- 
mixture of mucus, which is derived from the lining mem- 
brane of this reservoir. 

The quantity of bile secreted in the healthy human 
adult probably ranges from 3 to 5 lbs. daily : averaging 
at least 3^ or 4 lbs. Its secretion is continuous ; but is in- 
creased after a meal, and apparently rises to its "maximum 
as the act of digestion brings about the absorption of con- 
tinually increasing quantities of nutriment. Thus attain- 
ing a considerable quantity about two or three hours after 
a meal, the liquid of the bile gradually increases, and the 
proportion of its solids still more so, until, about ten to 
fifteen hours after the ingestion of food, both the bulk of 
secretion, and the weight of solid residue, attain their 
climax ; to sink progressively, by continued fasting, to 
reach a minimum during starvation. 



192 DIGESTION. 

The exactness of the above statements is, however, 
rendered doubtful by certain complications : which are 
ascribable to the influence of the gall-bladder, and to the 
mechanism through which the digestive process is brought 
to bear on this reservoir, and on the various ducts. The 
small capacity of the gall-bladder in comparison with the 
daily amount of bile, concurs with the great increase of 
solids shown by its contents — in some cases from three to 
five times the solids of the hepatic bile, — to indicate an 
extremely active resorption of water, and concentration of 
bile, in its cavity. Whether, under any normal circum- 
stances, the hepatic bile is poured out into the bowel dur- 
ing digestion, while the cystic remains unclaimed, is at 
present doubtful. But it is probable that, in the ap- 
parently simple mechanism of the duodenal opening com- 
mon to the biliary and pancreatic ducts, distention of the 
bowel can scarcely do more than assist that closure of 
this orifice, which must be ascribed mainly to the muscular 
contractions of the duct and of the intestine itself: and 
that it is essentially the increased pressure of the copious 
secretions which throws open this valve for the transit of 
both the bile and the pancreatic juice. 

A reservoir of so variable a size as is the gall-bladder 
— which in many animals is absent ; and in many other-. > 
quite incapable of containing more than one-tenth to one- 
twentieth of the bile secreted daily — cannot have more 
than a collateral relation to the secretion of the bile, el- 
even to its discharge into the intestinal canal. Allowing 
for the concentration the gall-bladder effects in its con- 
tents, and further allowing for the influence of numerous 



COMPOSITION OF THE BILE. 193 

meals in a day, as contrasted with a single large ingestion 
of food, we can scarcely avoid the conclusion, that bile is 
not diverted so exclusively into this cavity during fasting, 
but that a scanty proportion is constantly entering the 
bowel to undergo absorption there. The appearances of 
the fasting intestine, as well as the phenomena of vomit- 
ing (see Appendix A.), confirm this view ; by showing the 
constant presence of bile in the intestinal canal when 
digestion is not going on. Hence we are obliged to infer 
that, in animals which possess a gall-bladder, the flow of 
bile into the duodenum, remittent partly as a result of 
fluctuations in the process of secretion itself, is virtually 
rendered still more so by the condensed and accumulated 
state of the secretion which this reservoir collects during 
fasting, and empties into the bowel at a certain advanced 
stage of the digestive act ; but that both the secretion and 
re-absorption of bile are essentially uninterrupted. At the. 
outset of digestion, however, it seems likely that all entry 
of bile into the duodenum is for a time completely cut 
off. 

The composition of the bile is subject to such wide 
variations of quality and quantity, that nothing short of a 
careful collation of numerous observations promises any- 
thing like a safe estimate. While, as regards many of its 
details, no such materials are yet at our disposal. 

For example, the solid contents of the secretion have 
been found to range in different animals and specimens 
from 2 to 25 per cent. Assuming Frerichs's estimate of 14 
per cent., we may regard the following as an approxima- 
tion to its constituents in the human subject : — 

o 



194 DIGESTION. 

Water 860 

Solids 140 

f 105 taurocholates and glycocholates. 
Organic 122 < 16 fat, colouring matter, cholestearin. 
L 1*6 mucus. 

{5* chloride of sodium. 
2*9 phosphate of soda. 
1-4 phosphate of potash. 
•5 phosphate of lime. 
•28 phosphate of magnesia. 
Free carbonates, iron, silicic acid. 

1000 

The large deficiency of the inorganic ingredient is in 
part explained by the quantity of alkali (chiefly soda) which 
is combined with the resinous acids, fat, and colouring 
matter, of the organic ingredient. The taurocholate and 
glycocholate of the bile are regarded as double fatty (or 
rather resinous) acids ; formed by the combination of 
taurine (C 4 H 7 N S 2 6 ) and glycine (C 4 H. N 4 ) with 
. cholic acid (C 48 H 39 9 + HO) respectively. The former 
thus contains so large a quantity of sulphur as to amount 
in some instances to 6 per cent, of the total biliary secretion. 
The colouring matter, which contains about 6 or 7 per cent, 
of nitrogen, is probably derived from that of the blood : 
and is stated by Berzelius to have a composition identical 
with that of the chlorophyll of plants. The fats are partly 
dissolved by the aid of the taurocholic acid ; partly com- 
bined as fatty acids with the alkalis present. 

Very little bile appears to leave the intestines with the 
healthy fa?ces. A variable quantity of its pigment may. 
however, be thus traced out of the body. And it seems 
certain that portions of its resinous acids are gradually 
precipitated in their passage through the bowel in the form 



USES OF THE BILE. 195 

of calcareous and insoluble salts; while others are de- 
posited as insoluble by increasing oxidation. Taurin 
may thus be detected. But it would appear, from observa- 
tions and analyses by Bidder and Schmidt, that the quan- 
tity of its solids thus disposed of is but a very small 
fraction (less then ^th?) of the original mass: the 
greater part of which thus undergoes re-absorption in its 
course along the intestinal canal. 

The ultimate destiny of the re- absorbed bile is unknown. 
But we may conjecture that its large ingredients of carbon, 
hydrogen, and even nitrogen, are ultimately dismissed from 
the system through the ordinary channels for the excretion 
of the compounds of these elements ; namely, the lungs, 
the skin, and the kidneys. How many times, prior to this 
exit, they repeat their cycle of movement through the 
bowel, remains utterly unknown. 

The influence of the bile on digestion has been best 
studied by the admirable researches in which Bidder and 
Schmidt have detailed the various results of its absence, 
as seen in animals in whom they diverted the duct and its 
contents completely away from the bowels, through fistulous 
apertures which led it out of the body. 

As the general result of these and similar researches, 
it may be stated that the bile, though highly recre- 
mentitious, is yet not essential, either to digestion or to 
Life. For if fche total loss of the bile be compensated 
by a largely increased ingestion of food, the animal thus 
robbed of this secretion may survive during an almost 
indefinite period. And the details of that extra want of 
food, which is thus entailed by the withdrawal of the bile, 



196 DIGESTION. 

seem to consist, not merely in the loss of the hydrocarbons 
contained in the bile itself, but also in that diminished 
absorption of fat which the loss of this adjuvant secretion 
brings about. The faeces of such an animal, whitish and 
ineffably putrid as they are, do not show any quantity of 
undigested meat-fibre. But the fatty constituent of the 
food passes largely away in the stools. It would thus 
appear that the bile, by moistening the villi, in some way 
aids the penetration of these structures by the neutral fats 
— a fact which has indeed been rudely verified by expe- 
riments made on these two liquids with capillary tubes. 
And the increased voracity and need of the fistulous 
animal point at its organism being compensated, by an in- 
creased assimilation of albuminous substances, for the 
hydrocarbons thus lost to it from those alimentary, as 
well as biliary, sources of fat which are open in the unin- 
jured animal. 

From what ingredients of the portal blood the bile is 
furnished, can only be conjectured generally ; though the 
circumstances of its secretion point to its being derived 
more largely from the ingesta than from the system. 
Certainly the phenomena of this secretion, both in disease 
and starvation, conclusively indicate that it forms no ne- 
cessary or unavoidable stage in the waste or removal of 
adipose tissue from the system, much as its large fatty 
ingredients might favour such a supposition. In any case, 
some of its most important ingredients appear to be formed 
in the liver itself. 

The relation to digestion of the liver — as an organ stand- 
ing midway between the alimentary canal and the ge- 



CHANGES OF HEPATIC BLOOD. 197 

neral circulation, in the transit of the various materials 
absorbed into the portal system from this tube — constitutes 
another aspect of its use in the oeconomy, and one which 
is even less known to us than its function as the organ 
which secretes the bile. Bernard has, indeed, found that 
the injection of peptone into the general circulation, is 
followed by the extrusion of albumen in the urine ; while 
if thrown into the portal vein, and thus allowed to traverse 
the liver, no such extrusion takes place. How far, however, 
such an assimilation of peptone should be assigned to the 
liver as an organ specially effecting it ; — how far to such 
a long delay, or slow progress, of the blood in the interior 
of a large gland as would alone permit this vital fluid to 
effect the elaboration or removal of peptone — remains for 
the present in doubt. 

But it is probable that a whole series of actions of an 
analogous kind belong to the liver itself, quite apart from 
the secretion of bile. Were our analyses perfect, the 
contrast between the constituents of the portal blood and 
those of the hepatic vein would give us, as it were, the exact 
complement of the bile. The former variety of blood , 
minus this secretion, would exactly correspond to the 
latter. And in this latter variety of blood, we might ex- 
pect to find at least some of the alimentary products ; which 
would scarcely yield up the whole of their substance to 
the bile they largely help to compose. 

Such a comparison has indeed been attempted*; and 

with results which, whatever their exact value, suggest 

some striking considerations. The hepatic blood, com- 

* Lehmann, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 80 et passim, 

o 3 



198 DIGESTION. 

pared with the portal, contains less water, and more ex- 
tractive — in which latter term we may include its glycogenic 
or saccharine ingredient. Its fats are reduced to one half, 
and among these the copious elain of the portal blood is 
especially deficient. Its albumen is also reduced to one 
half, and its fibrin greatly diminished. In connection 
with these circumstances may be noticed the appearance 
of an unusual number of pale corpuscles; and what is 
probably an absolute, as well as relative, diminution in 
the numbers of the red globules. Finally, Schmidt has 
called attention to the fact, that the composition of the 
fat lost from the portal blood is such as would allow us 
to imagine its separation, with little change save a small 
increment of oxygen, into those two ingredients — cholic 
acid, and glycogen or grape sugar — which seem to form 
the main features of the hepatic function, both in respect 
of the secretion of bile on the one hand, and of the elabo- 
ration of the portal into hepatic blood on the other. 

The further progress of digestion in the small intestine 
continues the changes set up by the foregoing secretions. 
The absorption of fat, the absorption (and probably the 
formation) of peptone, the conversion of starch into sugar, 
and the absorption of sugar and of water, are prolonged 
throughout the whole length of this part of the bowel : at 
the end of which they enter the large intestine.* 

* Several figures in the foregoing chapter owe some details to Koelliker's 
admirable engravings. 









199 



CHAP. VI. 

DIGESTION. — THE LARGE INTESTINE. 

Large Intestine, its Measurements, Divisions. — Caecum ; its Shape, Structure, 
Openings. — Ileo-caecal Valve. — Vermiform Appendix. — Colon ; its Form, 
Structure. — Its Movements ; observed, deduced. — Kectum ; its Situation, 
Shape, Structure. — Its Sphincters. — Its Contractions; propulsive, expul- 
sive or Defecation. — Its Folds. — Mucous Membrane. — Arteries of the 
Intestinal Canal; Superior, Inferior Mesenteric, and their Branches. — 
Intestinal Veins. — Eationale of the Intestinal Vessels. — Nerves of the 
Intestinal Canal. — Lymphatics. — Contents of the Large Intestine: Faecal, 
Gaseous. — Digestion in this Segment. — Office of the Caecum. — Duration 
of Intestinal Digestion. — Faeces. — Their Properties ; Sources. — Mechanical 
Ingredients. — Chemical Composition. — Intestinal and gastric Oases. — 
Their "Composition, Nature, and Sources. — Their Kelation to Secretion. — 
Their Absorption. — Kelation of Digestion to Nutrition. — Intermediate 
Circulation. — Digestion, its Expenditure of Force. 

Large Intestine. — This part of the alimentary canal, 
beginning at the lower end of the ileum in the right iliac 
fossa, passes upwards to the under surface of the liver. 
Here, turning at a right angle, it runs horizontally below 
the stomach, to its left extremity. By a second bend, it 
now regains the vertical direction ; and passes downwards 
towards the left iliac fossa. In this region it next forms a 
curve like an S, thence named the sigmoid flexure ; from 
the lower end of which it passes down wards obliquely 
towards the median line, where it ends in a short tube, 
which runs in this line to the anus. In this course, its 

o 4 



200 



DIGESTION. 



average length is from four to six feet ; its width from two 
to three inches : two measurements usually varying in- 
versely as each other, except under extreme distention 
and contraction ; by which both may be respectively in- 
creased and decreased simultaneously. Such an estimate, 

Fig. 43. 




Large intestine, as seen in situ, in a state of moderate inflation. The ante- 
rior wall of the belli/, and the small intestine, are supposed to have been 
removed. 

c, caecum ; a. ascending portion of the colon ; t, transverse portion ; d, de- 
scending portion ; s, sigmoid flexure ; r, rectum. 



which assigns to the large intestine about one-fourth the 
length, and twice the width, of the small, suggests a toler- 
ably equal capacity for both. But the active surface of 
the large intestine is scarcely one-half that of the small : 



THE CECUM. 201 

a difference further increased by the absence of those villi 
and valvulce conniventes (pp. 143, 151), by which the 
mucous membrane of the narrower tube is virtually so 
much increased in superficial extent. 

Consisting of the usual serous, muscular, and mucous 
coats, with their vessels, nerves, and lymphatics, the large 
intestine is divided by differences in the nature and ar- 
rangement of these tunics, as well as by other peculiarities 
relating to its size, shape, and situation, into the follow- 
ing segments: the ccecum; the vermiform appendix; the 
colon (in which are distinguished an ascending, transverse, 
and descending portions, and a sigmoid flexure); and 
finally the rectum. 

The ccecum (formerly called the " blind gut ") is so 
named from the fact that the cylindrical ileum, instead of 
being simply produced and dilated into the large intestine, 
opens into it at right angles at some distance from its 
commencement, leaving its blind extremity behind the site 
of their mutual junction. In diameter, this pouch usually 
exceeds the remainder of the bowel ; being only surpassed 
by the stomach. When moderately distended, it measures 
about three inches in length and width ; the former measure- 
ment having an arbitrary limit in the direction toward the 
anus, at the level of the ileo-caecal valve. Its situation 
allows it great fluctuations of size without any marked 
change of relations. Bound down to the fascia covering 
the muscles in the iliac fossa by peritoneum and areolar 
tissue, its enlargement merely displaces any portions of 
the small intestine casually in contact with it here, before 
bringing the anterior aspect of its own outer surface into 



202 DIGESTION. 

contact with the anterior wall of the belly in the iliac 
region; where its size, shape, and even contents, are thence- 
forth often recognizable during life to a suitable physical 
examination. 

The somewhat globular shape of the csecum is qualified 
by the arrangement of its muscular coat, which here 
assumes a peculiar arrangement, maintained to the end of 
the colon. The external or longitudinal layer, instead of 
forming an uniform expanse, is separated into three flat- 
tened bands, which occupy the tube at nearly equal dis- 
tances from each other : one (the larger) anterior : one 
posterior ; and one external. All of these are continuous 
with similar bands which pass along the ascending colon. 
Between these slips of muscle, the bowel presents a dilated 
or projecting surface ; which is subdivided by transverse 
constrictions into subordinate pouches or sacculL When 
examined from within, these constrictions are seen to be 
formed by the circular muscular layer; which sends in- 
wards projections that complicate the general cavity of the 
tube, by surrounding it with a number of supplementary 
cavities or cells. These cells are arranged in three vertical 
rows : separated by ridges, which are the reverses of the 
vertical depressions formed externally by the longitudinal 
bands. Between these bands, the cells or pouches of the 
bowel are covered by a muscular wall of great tenuity : the 
transverse layer being reduced to a thin membranous ex- 
panse, and the longitudinal (as already stated) altogether 
absent. 

The peritoneum covering the caecum fixes it closely to 
the fascia covering the iliacus muscle. In a state of mode- 



THE CJECUM. 203 

rate distention, the tube is only clothed by it anteriorly. 
But when much contracted, the intestine acquires a more 
complete covering : which is sometimes also produced into 
a kind of meso-caecum behind it. Conversely, distention 
of the tube restricts the caecum covering to the anterior 
third (or even less) of its circumference. 

Fig. 44. 




CcBcum inflated, dried, and opened, to exhibit the arrangement of its valve. 

a, termination of the ileum ; b, ascending colon ; c, caecum ; d, transverse 
constriction projecting into the caecum from its inner surface; ef, valve 
separating the small from the large intestine ; e, its horizontal ileo- colic 
lamina ; /, its more oblique ileo-caecal lamina ; g> the vermiform appendix 
of the caecum. 

The mucous membrane of the caecum has the same 
structure as that of the large intestine generally, up to 



204 DIGESTION. 

the very edge of its junction with the ileum. Its aper- 
tures are three : one, that nominal aperture by which it 
is really continuous with the colon ; a second, which com- 
municates with the ileum, and is guarded by a double 
valve ; and a third, the orifice of its slender vermiform 
appendix. 

The opening into the ileum is situated at the junction 
of the upper, posterior, and left aspects of the caecum ; and 
the structures which bound it are often collectively termed 
the ileo-colic, or the ileo-caecal valve — names which in 
strictness belong to their two separate portions. Their ar- 
rangement may be described as follows. The end of the 
ileum, inclining upwards and backwards, meets the caecum 
at an acute angle. But instead of opening into one of the 
pouches or sacculi, it enters the caecum in the exact site 
of the deepest or most projecting of those transverse con- 
strictions which encroach on the general cavity of the 
bowel. This constriction, occupying the inner or left side 
of the caecum, is, as it were, split up by the entering ileum 
into two lamina, an upper or ileo-colic, and a lower or 
ileo-caecal (e, /, Fig. 44) ; at the same time that the 
hitherto cylindrical calibre of the ileum is gradually com- 
pressed into a horizontal slit or fissure as it traverses this 
fold. Each segment of the valve is formed chiefly by the 
prolongation of a corresponding portion of the circular 
muscular fibres of the ileum, interlaced with a few proper 
to the caecum. But the scantier longitudinal fibres derived 
from the ileum, as well as its peritoneal investment, are 
also attached to the fixed margin of each segment of the 
valve : the shape of which (as shown by the result of 
their division) they materially aid to preserve against 



ILEOCECAL VALVE. 205 

any tractile force. Of the two segments, the ileo-caecal 
has a more oblique plane, and a more concave margin. 

The mechanism of the valve is easily deduced from its 
structure. In the absence of actual distention, the pas- 
sive contraction of its muscular walls ensures their contact. 
Any active dilatation of the large intestine — whether 
caecum or colon — at once ensures their still more forcible 
apposition : not so much by the mere pressure of the 
distending contents on the colic and caecal surfaces of its 
upper and lower portions, as by the conversion of the two 
curved borders of each portion into straight lines — chords 
of the previous arcs — which necessarily take the closest 
coaptation. The process is well seen by gradually dis- 
tending the caecum with liquid after death ; an experiment 
which proves that the closure of the valve is in a great 
degree independent of all active muscular contraction. 

Distention of the large intestine, and closure of the 
valve, are thus made the common and equal results of 
increasing repletion of the tube below it. The only ex- 
ception to this law is found in cases in which the caecum 
and ileum are filled simultaneously. Such a process 
necessarily occurs in all cases of mechanical obstruction 
of the large intestine near the valve ; the onward flow of 
the contents of the ileum first filling the adjacent caecum 
and colon, and then distending the aperture by that counter 
force which is applied on the further accumulation of con-^ 
tents in the small intestine. The effect of such a process 
is well seen in the ordinary inflated and dried prepara- 
tions of these parts (Fig. 44) ; in which preparations the 
aperture displayed must therefore be always regarded as 
strictly abnormal. 



206 DIGESTION. 

The function of this valve may therefore be contrasted 
with that of the pylorus, in the fact, that while it is 
scarcely any obstacle to an onward transit of the canal 
behind, it resolutely bars all reflux ; an action which the 
pylorus might almost be regarded as reversing (p. 97). 
In like manner, we have found reason to conclude that, 
whatever the details of its active contraction, its efficiency 
mainly depends on a mechanism which is passive, physical, 
and permanent: while that of the pylorus is due to an 
active, vital, and intermittent process — to wit ; the con- 
traction of its own powerful muscular fibres. 

The use of the caecum is that of a receptacle, in which 
the matters passed onwards from the small intestine so- 
journ a while before entering the colon. Such a purpose 
is deducible, not only from its shape, size, and direction, 
but still more from its development in different animals. 
Thus the large caecum of the Hevbivora is contrasted with 
one of very small size and development in the Carnicora* 
In all these respects, however, it- does but correspond to 
the remainder of the large intestine, whose structure and 
function it shares. (Compare pp. 229 and 231.) 

The vermifomi appendix (g, Fig. 44, and below c c 
Fig. 15.), so named from its being appended to the caecum, 
and having a shape and size resembling those of a worm, 
is a small, smooth, cylindrical tube, which opens into the 
caecum below, and somewhat behind, the ileo-ca?cal valve. 
Its length is usually from two to four inches ; its width 
from three to four lines. Its attached end shares the situa- 
tion of the contiguous caecum. Its opposite extremity m 
usually free ; and hence may occupy any situation which 






VERMIFORM APPENDIX. 207 

its short mesentery, and its own length, together allow it 
to take. Its opening into the caecum is generally narrowed 
by a transverse fold or valve of varying depth. Its struc- 
ture only differs from that of the caecum in the circum- 
stances of its having an uniform muscular wall ; and in the 
number (almost a continuous layer) of those follicles (p. 175) 
which are usually imbedded in its sub-mucous or areolar 
coat. The minute calibre of the tube contains glairy mucus, 
with w T hich are occasionally admixed fragments of th<j 
various contents of the bowel. Its use is unknown ; its 
development scarcely less mysterious. Its situation ex- 
poses it to the entry and impaction of intestinal contents. 
These, often increased in bulk by the precipitation around 
them of a rough phosphatic crust, of which they are only 
the central nucleus, sometimes give rise to dangerous in- 
flammation in the tissues of the appendix and the neigh- 
bouring bowel. 

The situation of the colon in its three first portions — 
ascending, transverse, and descending — has already been 
sufficiently indicated. In the female, its relative anatomy 
is often disturbed by the habit of tight lacing ; w T hich 
sometimes bends down the middle of the arch, or of its 
transverse portion, into an angle directed downwards (so 
that the three parts of the natural horse-shoe curve are 
replaced by a kind of M) : oftener, I think, obliterates all 
this transverse portion ; so that the bowel, passing up 
behind the compressed and elongated liver, bends suddenly 
back into a descending segment. Indirectly such me- 
chanical interference doubtless injures the propulsive action 
of the tube. 



208 DIGESTION. 

The sigmoid flexure forms an #-shaped curve (s, s, 
Fig. 43 ; s, f, Fig. 15), which chiefly occupies the vertical 
plane. But a slight lateral bend is also generally present ; 
and is easily increased into a more distinct one by the dis- 
tention of this mobile segment. The use of this arrange- 
ment seems to be that of forming for the faeces such a 
receptacle as spares the rectum and its sphincter muscles 
much of that pressure and weight, against which the ac- 
cumulation of excrement below this flexure would other- 
wise constantly oblige them to contend. When full, its 
inferior convexity descends below the iliac fossa into the 
pelvis. 

The colon, retaining the sacculated shape it receives 
from the csecum, undergoes a slight but progressive de- 
crease of size, from its commencement to its termination 
in the rectum. Its peritoneal covering is least extensive 
in its ascending arid transverse portions ; where a third of 
the bowel is left uncovered by serous membrane, between 
the layers of which it is attached by areolar tissue to the 
subjacent parts. Hence these portions are usually selected 
when it becomes necessary to institute an artificial opening 
in the bowel. But great distention on the one haud, and 
excessive contraction on the other, can respectively in- 
crease the width of this uncovered aspect, and reduce it 
to a line sometimes attaching a short meso-colon. The 
muscular arrangements which confer the sacculated shape 
are somewhat modified in the course of the colon. In its 
transverse portion, the longitudinal band formerly internal 
becomes inferior. And on the sigmoid flexure, this and 
the posterior band merge into one ; at the same time that 



MOVEMENTS OF THE COLOX. 209 

the sacculi themselves become less distinct and promi- 
nent. 

Throughout the colon and part of the rectum, the peri- 
toneum is here and there prolonged into short pouches, 
which are termed appendices epiploicce, and which con- 
sist of flattened duplicatures of the serous membrane, 
enclosing areolar and adipose tissue. Their number, size, 
and arrangement, are subject to great variety. Sometimes 
they constitute a single or double row along the free sur- 
face of the bowel; sometimes they are but few and im- 
perfect. Like most other processes of peritoneum, they 
are increased by contraction, diminished by distention, of 
the bowel. Their contents suggest that they are reservoirs 
of fatty matter ; and hence, in obese persons, they some- 
times acquire a size and length (one to two inches) which 
permits them to surround and strangulate the bowel. 

The movements of the caecum and colon can only be 
generally inferred from some of their attendant circum- 
stances. Like those of the small intestine, though their 
mechanism may be deduced from the structure of the 
muscular coats, their exact details remain unknown. 

During life, for example, they contain a quantity of 
gaseous matter ; which usually maps out the caecum, and 
more or less of the colon, as a tube both larger, and more 
resonant to percussion, than is the small intestine. And 
after death, we generally find that, beside these gaseous 
contents, the caecum is occupied by a semi-liquid or pulta- 
ceous mass, the consistence of which gradually increases 
as it approaches the rectum through the various (and often 
interrupted) points of the colon containing a similar mass, 

P 



& 



210 DIGESTION. 

Hence the fecal contents near this end of the colon are 
often sufficiently solid and continuous to form a complete 
cast of the bowel ; — a cast in which the pouches or sacculi 
of the tube are figured as three rows of projections, be- 
tween which intervene depressions corresponding to the 
deep transverse bands that separate the cells of the bowel. 
Indeed, the shape thus possessed by the solid contents of 
the human colon is often retained after their propulsion 
through the rectum in the process of defecation. While, 
in many of the lower animals, this conformation of the 
excrements is habitual ; and affords a valuable insight 
into the muscular action of their highly developed large 
intestines. 

As regards direct observation of these movements, we find 
that the large intestine of many herbivorous animals (for 
example, of the Eabbit) becomes the seat, soon after death, 
of a kind of irregular peristalsis, which is far less energetic 
than that noticeable in the small intestine, and is especi- 
ally feeble in the caecum ; but is otherwise analogous to the 
contraction of the unstriped fibre generally (comp. p. 142 . 
In this vermicular action, the sacculi contract and dilate 
alternately; the transverse partitions of the adjacent 
pouches sharing in these movements. This alternate effect 
is often accompanied by an irregular contraction of the 
longitudinal bands, which sometimes shorten the whole 
tube by shortening and widening a series of its con- 
tiguous sacculi. But even where a continuous movement 
of this kind engages a considerable length of intestine, it 
rarely affects all the pouches alike; for the most part pass- 
ing lightly over one or two, to bear more heavily on those 






MOVEMENTS OF THE COLON. 211 

which immediately succeed them. Similar movements are 
producible by galvanizing the nerves which pass from the 
solar plexus to be distributed to the bowel. 

Hence while the increased solidity of its contents im- 
plies a proportionately increased resistance to its muscular 
contractions, the large intestine as a whole, far from show- 
ing any superiority of strength over the small, has a 
weaker, thinner, less uniform, and more interrupted, mus- 
cular coat ; with a general movement which is therefore 
probably slower, feebler, less effective, and interrupted by 
longer periods of rest. 

The shape and consistence often possessed by the faeces 
add to "these inferences, that the contents of the colon gene- 
rally occupy the same pouches for a long period ; often, 
probably, complete the greater part of their sojourn in the 
colon in a single pouch of this bowel, from which they there- 
after pass without any delay or remodelling in subsequent 
sacculi. And — inasmuch as the most careful observation 
generally fails to detect any true or independent axis be- 
tween the three rows of globular masses which often ad- 
here to form the excrement, even when it is but moderately 
hard — we are justified in supposing that, (1.) the colic 
pouches alone may enact the function of the bowel, their 
confluence in the centre of the tube forming a canal 
merely propulsive; and (2.) that adjacent pouches must 
act co-ordinately with each other, and with the canal 
generally, in forwarding their apposed contents, so that 
(even if their other functions permit or demand the 
closure of each pouch into a separate cavity) their propul- 
sive act is the sum of those of all the adjacent muscular 

p % 



212 



DIGESTION. 



constituents of the bowel ; one segment of which is thus 
in all probability largely relaxed, in advance of a powerful 
and consentaneous peristalsis behind it. 

In such a co-ordinate propulsion, it is necessary to as- 
sume some special preliminary act of the thin muscular 
wall of the colic pouch itself; the arc which any section of 
it would form tending towards a chord or straight line, at 
a time when the longitudinal and transverse bands are 
still uncontracted or actively relaxed. This once effected, 
and the contents of the sacculi once apposed in the axis 
of the tube, the concurrent contraction of the two stronger 
sets of fibres would form an expanse of unstriped muscle, 
quite thick and powerful enough to be capable of obliterat- 
ing the whole calibre of the intestine. 

The mucous membrane of the colon differs from that 
of the small intestine chiefly in the facts that it is thicker, 
and is devoid of villi. Its tubes are thus longer, as well 
as wider; while its solitary follicles are also larger and more 
numerous. And the depressions of mucous membrane 
which overlie the latter structures form more distinct pits, 
with vertical (or even divergent) sides. (Comp. Fig. 31.) 

The rectum, or straight intestine, extends from the sig- 
moid flexure of the colon to the lower opening of the 
intestinal canal at the anus. Its length is about seven 
or eight inches. Its width gradually increases, from a 
diameter equalling that of the end of the sigmoid colon, to 
a kind of dilatation or pouch near its lower aperture. 
Here it suddenly contracts to the narrow orifice of the 
anus, in the middle of the perineum, which closes the 
pelvis, and forms the lower extremity of the trunk. 



THE RECTUM. 



213 



Strictly speaking, the rectum is not straight. Begin- 
ning at the left sacro-iliac joint (e, Fig. 45), it passes 
obliquely downwards and inwards towards the middle line 




The viscera of the adult male pelvis, as seen after the removal of the left 
innominate bone : showing the situation and relations of the rectum. 

a, fourth lumbar vertebra ; b, bladder ; c, symphysis of the pubis ; d, inner 
surface of the left os ilii ; e, sacro-iliac articulation ; /, vas deferens ; g, 
ureter ; h, spine of the ischium sawn through, and left attached by the coccy- 
geus muscle; *, left vesicula seminalis; k, prostate gland;, I, bulb of the 
urethra ; m, left corpus cavernosum divided at its root; n, anus; o, levator 
ani cut across near its attachment to the coccyx; p, sciatic nerves and 
vessels ; q, fibres of levator ani passing round the lower end of the rectum ; 
r, rectum, 1, 2, 3, its first, second, and third portions ; s, sigmoid flexure of 
the colon ; r v, peritoneum forming the left side of the recto- vesical pouch. 



of the trunk, which it reaches over the body of the third 
sacral vertebra (r 1, Fig. 45). And though it henceforth 

p3 



214 DIGESTION. 

occupies the median line, still, in descending upon the con- 
cave anterior surface of the sacrum and coccyx, it assumes 
a similar curve. This second curve, concave forwards, 
ends at the tip of the coccyx; where the tube suddenly 
bends downwards at a right angle, and thus becomes 
vertical for a very short distance before ending in the 
anus. 

The peritoneal coat, which gives the first portion of the 
bowel a covering like that of the adjacent colon, gradually 
becomes reduced, on the second portion occupying the 
concavity of the sacrum and coccyx, to a layer which, at 
first only leaving uncovered the lateral aspects of the in- 
testine, ends by turning upwards from its anterior surface 
to the posterior surface of the bladder, as the recto-vesical 
pouch. The remainder of this second portion, as well as 
the short third portion of the bowel, are thus altogether 
devoid of a peritoneal covering. 

The muscular coat may be regarded as collecting into a 
single and uniform expanse, with a greatly increased thick- 
ness, the bands of the longitudinal layer, and the alter- 
nately thickened and thinned segments of the transverse 
layer of the colon. Above, for example, the muscular 
coat of the rectum doubles the thickness of that of the 
colon ; below, it is scarcely less than four times as thick. 
The fibres themselves (especially the transverse) are of a 
redder colour; and, near the anus, are mingled with the 
striated elements of those voluntary muscles interlaced 
with them. And the analogy of this terminal tube of 
transmission — the rectum — to the oesophagus, in all 
these respects, is rendered closer by the presence of folds 



STRUCTURE OF THE RECTUM. 215 

of mucous membrane, due to the passive contraction of its 
muscular tissue. In short, this last segment of the canal 
in some sense resumes the position, the structure, and the 
actions, of the first. 

But, besides the ordinary muscular coat, the rectum is 
provided with a special contractile apparatus, connected 
with its office of expelling from the body the excrementi- 
tious contents of the intestinal canal. Two sphincter mus- 
cles ordinarily constrict and close its lower aperture. A 
powerful levator ani attaches its anal extremity to the 
structures of the pelvis, the lower aperture of which they 
thus close around the tube. And the muscles of the belly 
are also habitually invoked, to aid the expulsive contrac- 
tions of the rectum itself. 

The sphincter internus, within the bowel, is little 
more than a thickening of the proper circular layer of the 
muscular coat. The sphincter externus is a deep red 
mass of striped muscular fibre, which surrounds the lower 
end of the rectum (n, Fig. 45), including the preceding 
structure. Its form is elliptical. Its outer border has a 
higher level than its inner one, so that it receives the end 
of the bowel into a shallow funnel ; the contraction of 
which closes the cavity of the bowel by the pressure of the 
surface (and not merely of the edge) of its plane of fibres. 
Its outermost bundles pass forwards, from a coccygeal 
tendon, to the central tendinous point of the perineum ; its 
innermost or lowest fibres are fixed to a subcutaneous 
areolar tissue of considerable, though less, density. 

It is chiefly through the intervention of the latter sphinc- 
ter that the levator ani is attached to the bowel. The fibres 

P4 



216 DIGESTION 

of this expanse of striped muscle descend obliquely back- 
wards from the pelvis to close its lower aperture. In front 
of the rectum, they interlace with the sphincter in the 
middle of the perineum. Behind the rectum, a large 
plane of thin fibres passes round the tube, returning by a 
similar portion from the opposite side, so as to sling or 
suspend the canal within a series of loops. The portion 
intermediate to these anterior and posterior slips descends 
to be inseparably united with the upper or outer rings of 
the sphincter itself, and also scatters some of its fibre- 
among both the layers of the unstriped muscular coat of 
the bowel near its termination. 

Defalcation, — The muscular contraction of the rectum has 
a two-fold object : firstly, that propulsion common to all 
the segments of the intestinal canal : and, secondly, an ex- 
pulsion belonging to the rectum as the end of the canal, and 
the channel by which its contents are dismissed from the 
body. Health and comfort alike require that this act should 
be intermittent, and even infrequent. Vrhile the ordinary 
consistence of the intestinal contents is such, that their rapid 
expulsion demands a powerful mechanical force. Hence, 
though the mere propulsion of contents from a higher to a 
lower part of the rectum requires nothing more than a 
peristaltic contraction of such a power as might fairly be in- 
ferred from the greater thickness of its muscular coat — in 
which estimate, by the way, velocity of transit may be 
regarded as proportionally increased — yet the total act of 
defoecation involves the addition of those various controlling 
and assisting agents above alluded to as quite extraneous 
to the bowel itself. 






DEF^ECATIOX. 217 

The peristaltic element of defsecation may be not only 
inferred from the structure of the muscular coat of the 
end of the bowel, but may be roughly imitated by galvan- 
ising its nerves in the dead body, as well as observed 
in the living animal. 

The voluntary muscles which assist it are divisible into 
two classes, diverse both in their situation and action. 
The first comprises the planes of muscle which form the 
anterior, lateral, and superior walls of the belly, and by 
their contraction, forcibly compress the intestinal contents 
of this cavity. The second is formed by the muscles of 
the anus. 

The mechanism of the abdominal pressure being else- 
where more fully alluded to (Appendix A.), we need only 
notice here those special conditions under which it is in- 
voked to aid in defalcation. 

The first of these is stimulation of the large intestine 
itself, and especially of its muscular coat ; the mechanical 
distention of which is indeed the normal excitant of the 
total expulsive act. Irritation of the mucous membrane is 
another stimulus to such contraction ; in which, again, the 
muscular wall of the bowel often takes a co-ordinate part. 
Indeed, there are indications of a converse influence, 
which is exerted by the muscular wall of the belly on that 
of the bowel ; distention or even compression of the former 
provoking contraction of the latter. 

As regards the levator ani, its chief office in relation 
to the expulsive act is probably that of completing 
the abdominal pressure over the perineal aperture of the 
pelvis, and of fixing the bowel during defaecation. The 



218 DIGESTION. 

influence of the adjacent perineal structures is probably 
similar, though its details are more obscure. 

Hence, in defecation, the peristalsis of the colon propels 
a variable quantity of feces into the rectum. These, after 
a variable sojourn in its first and second portions, excite 
an active peristalsis in its powerful muscular coat. It is 
generally at the lower extremity of the .bowel that the 
abdominal pressure begins to add to this peristalsis its 
own more powerful expulsive force. Thus combined, 
these two actions urge the fecal mass into and acgainst the 
external sphincter ; which relaxes at this instant, so as to 
permit the extrusion of the descending mass, the loose 
mucous membrane being at the same time slightly everted 
through the anus. They now extrude a variable length of 
excrement until, its continuity being interrupted, the 
arrested act of respiration (Appendix A.) is resumed, the 
abdominal pressure ceases, and the contractions of the 
levator ani, and of the bowel, suddenly and forcibly retract 
into the pelvis the prolapsed end of the tube. In this 
act, the sudden and energetic closure of the sphincters 
seems sometimes to subdivide a continuous fecal mass, 
and to return its upper segment into the rectum. The 
duration of the whole expulsive process is chiefly deter- 
mined by the consistence of the feces, and by the velocity of 
their transit, as well as by the exigencies of the suspended 
act of respiration itself. That maximum of abdominal 
pressure which is sometimes required for the expulsion of 
scybalous excrements, often involves all the viscera of the 
trunk, and even seriously obstructs the current of blood in 
the veins of the chest and head. 



MUCOUS MEMBRANE OF THE RECTUM. 219 

The mucous membrane of the rectum is connected with 
its subjacent muscular coat much more loosely than is 
that of the colon. It therefore exhibits numerous tempo- 
rary folds, which, referrible to the passive contraction of its 
muscular strata, are very irregular in number, position, and 
size. Usually, however, they affect a longitudinal direc- 
tion, especially in the dilated lower end of the bowel. 

But besides these, the rectum possesses more con- 
stant, if not permanent, folds, which have a far more de- 
finite situation and character. They rarely contain special 
muscular fibres, and are in great degree effaced by complete 
distention of the tube ; — characters which distinguish them 
from those falciform septa which separate the adjacent 
pouches of the colon. Of these four folds, one projects 
from the posterior aspect of the tube at the middle of the 
coccyx ; one from the anterior aspect opposite the base of 
the bladder ; one from the left side of the tube still higher ; 
and lastly, one from the right side at the upper end of the 
rectum. Thus all tolerably correspond — so to speak — 
to the most prominent parts of those curves of the rectum 
already described. They seem in great degree due to the 
contraction of the longitudinal muscular coat ; and probably 
have the office of aiding to isolate (and thus to fill) the 
various parts of the tube. 

At the lower part of the rectum, the skin and mucous 
membrane become continuous with each other, a distinct 
line of demarcation pointing out their mutual limit. 
About one third of an inch above the anal aperture, the 
skin terminates by a wavy margin, the point of each of its 
projections giving origin to a longitudinal fold of mucous 



220 DIGESTION. 

membrane^ which, after proceeding a short distance up the 
bowel, either becomes indistinct and disappears, or is 
effaced by others taking a different course. Nearly in this 
situation, Kohlrausch has found a thin layer of unstriped 
fibres ; which, arising from the circular layer about 1 \ 
inches above the anus, pass downwards to be attached to 
the mucous membrane within the sphincter art' imtemus: 
— an attachment which suggests for them a kind of sus- 
pensory office in relation to this tunic. 

Intestinal Arteries. — We have seen (Fig. 12. and p. Ill ) 
that the stomach and duodenum are supplied by arteries 
derived from the cseliac axis, which springs from the 
upper part of the abdominal aorta. The latter vessel also 
supplies the remainder of the intestinal canal by two large 
branches; which, both in position and distribution, answer 
to their names of superior and inferior mesenteric. 

The superior mesenteric artery (a 5 Fig. 46), the longer 
of the two, is distributed to the lower part of the duodenum, 
the jejunum, the ileum, the caecum, and the first two-thirds 
of the colon. Springing from the aorta at the upper border 
of the second lumbar vertebra, it crosses the end of the 
duodenum, to reach the upper part of the mesentery ; 
between the two layers of which process of peritoneum 
it continues downwards, near their posterior or abdominal 
attachment, to an arbitrary termination opposite to the 
lower extremity of the ileum, where it is continuous with 
its own large branches to this bowel and to the neigh- 
bouring caecum. 

The names and arrangements of its chief branches are 
sufficiently indicated by the Annexed figure (Fig. 46): which 



THE MESENTERIC ARTERIES. 



221 



also illustrates how, in their further course towards the in- 
testine, they form an anastomosis, such as is indeed almost 
unparalleled throughout the whole body, in respect to the 



Fig. 46. 




Distribution of the superior mesenteric artery to the small and large 

intestine. 

a, trunk of the superior mesenteric artery ; b, ileo-colic artery ; c, its 
iliac branch ; d, its colic branch ; ' e, right colic artery ; /, middle colic 
artery ; g, arches formed by the anastomosis of the branches to the small 
intestine; p, pancreas; du, duodenum; j, jejunum; i, ileum; cee, caecum; 
a c, ascending colon ; t c, transverse colon ; d c, descending colon. 

size and frequency of its communications. Each primary 
branch bifurcates ; and the resulting branches unite with 
those above and below them to form a set of arterial arches, 



222 



DIGESTION. 



from the convexity of which spring new trunks, to divide 
and inosculate in a similar manner. In the small intes- 
tine, this arrangement is carried to such an extent as to 
form five or six successive sets of arches ; which, becoming 
smaller and more numerous as they approach the mesen- 
teric border of the bowel, end in the minute arterial 
branches that enter the intestinal coats. 




Distribution of the inferior mesenteric artery to the large intestine, 

a, abdominal aorta ; b, inferior mesenteric artery ; c, left colic artery : 
d, artery to the sigmoid flexure ; e, superior hemorrhoidal artery: /. middle 
colic artery ; g, large communicating branch between the left and middle 
colic artery; s f sigmoid flexure of the colon : r, rectum (t c, «<?, jp, du, as 
in Jig. 45). 

The inferior mesenteric artery (6, Fig. 47) supplies the 
descending and sigmoid colon, and the rectum. It leaves 



INTESTIXAL YEIXS. 223 

the aorta about one inch above its bifurcation, and below 
the left renal artery ; passing downwards and outwards over 
the aorta, the left psoas muscle, and the left iliac artery, 
to occupy the double fold of peritoneum (meso-rectum) 
which attache's the rectum to the pelvis. This terminal 
part of the vessel is called the superior hemorrhoidal 
artery (e 3 Fig. 47) ; and it ends, about the middle of the 
sacrum, by dividing into two branches, of which one is dis- 
tributed on each side of the rectum. They inosculate 
with the branches of the middle hemorrhoidal artery, 
which is given off to the rectum from the internal iliac 
artery, or from some of its branches. 

The two other named branches of the inferior mesenteric 
artery are the colica sinistra and sigmoidea (c, d, Fig. 47). 
Their further distribution recalls that of the superior mesen- 
teric,^ forming two or three series of arterial arches. And as 
the uppermost primary branch or twig of the colica sinistra 
joins the lower of the colica media in one large anasto- 
mosing vessel, it would be easy to trace out a continuous 
artery of great size ; which is prolonged from the trunk of 
the superior mesenteric artery through branches of the 
ileo-colic, and thence through the right, median, left, and 
sigmoid colic arteries, to end in the superior hemorrhoidal 
artery. 

The intestinal veins are characterised by the fact that, 
in their course from the capillaries of the bowel to the right 
side of the heart, they undergo a second ramification in 
the liver ; an arrangement which, by requiring the con- 
vergence of their trunks into a single vein — the portal — 
forbids to these vessels that close correspondence with the 



224 



DIGESTION. 



arteries which is seen in the veins of most other parts of 
the body. 

They commence as minute veins or radicles ; which are 



Fig. 48. 




Branches of the portal vein. 

a, trunk of the portal rein; b, superior mesenteric rein; c, inferior 
mesenteric vein ; eh splenic vein, joined by the. c. gastro-epiploic and pyloric 
veins ; /, pancreatico-duodenal veins ; g, branch of the portal trunk to the 
left lobe of the liver ; h, similar branch to the right lobe. 

(The remaining letters indicate as in the preceding figures.) 

continuous at one end with the true capillaries of the 
intestinal coats^ and open by the other into a dense network 






INTESTINAL VEINS. 225 

occupying the submucous areolar tissue. This plexus has 
indeed the same flattened shape and submucous situation 
as the corresponding arterial network already mentioned ; 
though its branches are, as is usual with the venous system, 
both larger and more numerous than the corresponding 
arteries. It empties itself into a number of larger veins ; 
which leave the bowel, and, by successive unions, gradually 
converge to form various trunks, tolerably corresponding 
with the primary branches of the cseliac axis, and with the 
two mesenteric arteries. 

The branches of the two mesenteric veins resemble those 
of the corresponding arteries, not only in their number 
and size, but also in the remarkable freedom of their 
anastomosis. And this copious inosculation, which coin- 
cides with an absence of all valves, not only holds good of 
these trunks, but also applies to the branches by which 
the portal communicates with the general venous system 
at the two ends of the alimentary canal. Thus, at the 
lower part of the oesophagus, many of its smaller veins 
communicate with both the azygos and the portal veins. 
While the lowest branches of the inferior mesenteric vein 
establish a much more extensive anastomosis between the 
vena porta and vena cava by joining a dense venous 
network — the hemorrhoidal plexus — which encircles the 
lower part of the rectum, and gives origin to the middle 
and inferior hemorrhoidal veins that open into the internal 
and external iliac veins respectively. 

The above peculiarities in the vessels of the intestine 
suggest the following explanations : — 

As regards the arteries, their vast number and size, and 

Q 



226 DIGESTION. 

the extraordinary freedom of their anastomosis, concede to 
the intestinal circulation, not only a large supply of blood, 
such as no local accident can interfere with, but (by virtue 
of the muscularity of the arterial walls) a complete and 
rapid control over the amount of blood they from time to 
time convey. Furthermore, on simple hydraulic principles, 
the existence of these repeated cross branches must so di- 
minish the various resistances offered to the blood within 
the vessels, as to permit a more rapid current (and hence 
more rapid renewal) in the mass of blood in the capillaries, 
as well as a more forcible pressure here. The compara- 
tively large size of the capillaries would heighten both 
these effects. 

Such considerations are intimately related to those de- 
ducible from an independent study of the corresponding 
circumstances in the intestinal veins. The portal blood 
they furnish is propelled through a second set of capillaries 
in the liver, chiefly by the force of the heart's beat, aided 
by a much less considerable force of suction which the 
thorax exerts by its expansion in inspiration. But just as, 
in the transfer of the original cardiac pressure through the 
intestinal capillaries, the arrangements of these vessels, and 
of their arteries, seem calculated to reduce those ordinary 
resistances of the vascular ramifications which reach their 
climax in the capillary system, so the convergence of the 
intestinal veins into one trunk recovers, as it were, a suffi- 
ciently large proportion of that cardiac pressure to propel 
the portal blood through another network of capillaries. 
Indeed, slow as the portal current probably is. the absence 
of valves in the portal vein seems to indicate that the 



IXTESTIXAL XERYES. 227 

force with which its blood circulates is far superior to that 
of the venous blood generally, however inferior to that 
of the ordinary arterial current. 

The nerves of the intestinal canal are derived chiefly 
from the sympathetic. The semilunar ganglia, which, 
lying on either side of the aorta shortly after its entry into 
the belly, unite with branches from the pneumogastric (es- 
pecially the right pneumogastric) and probably also from 
the phrenic nerves, give off anteriorly a median and gan- 
glionic network, the solar plexus. This plexus again gives 
off smaller and subordinate networks, around each of the 
arteries already mentioned. (Compare pp. 112, 116.) 
In this way the duodenum receives many small branches 
from the cseliac plexus ; and the superior and inferior 
mesenteric arteries are accompanied in their course to the 
small and large intestine by networks, the constituent 
nerves of which at first closely surround the arteries, but 
afterwards leave them as they approach the mesenteric 
border of the bowel. In this course they seem to give off 
very numerous filaments to the coats of the vessels ; and, 
at a point tolerably corresponding to the first or second 
row of arterial arches, are themselves thrown into a single 
series of similar arches or loops, the convexities of which 
radiate the nervous filaments distributed to the bowel. These 
branches, in which ganglion-corpuscles may be here and 
there detected by the microscope, now pass onwards between 
the two layers of mesentery ; and, after a shcrt course 
underneath the serous coat of the bowel, perforate its 
muscular tunic, to be soon lost on the under or attached 
surface of its mucous membrane. Occasionally, indistinct 

Q 2 



228 DIGESTION. 

appearances suggestive of nerve-fibres, and even of ganglion 
corpuscles, may be seen in this membrane itself, especially 
between its tubes in the neighbourhood of the villi. 

The lower of these ultimate intestinal plexuses appa- 
rently communicate with the spinal nerves distributed to 
the anus and its neighbourhood. A still more distinct 
communication connects the large plexus around the in- 
ferior mesenteric artery w r ith the lumbar ganglia of the 
sympathetic. 

The exact function of these nerves is a subject too com- 
plex to enter upon here. That their apparently large 
distribution to the vessels (especially to the arterial coats) 
is connected with the necessary fluctuations of calibre 
mediated by the muscular walls of these tubes, can scarcely 
be doubted. Their more strictly intestinal branches evi- 
dently, include fibres possessing a double function, afferent 
and efferent, answering to the sensitive and motor fibres 
of the spinal system. But the ganglionic elements which 
seem to be intercalated (if we may use such a phrase) with 
these sympathetic nerves at so many points of their course, 
oblige us to regard them as having a power of co-ordi- 
nation, such as quite transcends that of the merely afferent 
and efferent fibres w 7 hich mediate the ordinary reflex acts 
seen in the cerebro-spinal system (comp. p. 142). And 
experiment conclusively shows that, though these sympa- 
thetic nerves are excitable by energetic stimulation of the 
medulla oblongata and of the spinal chord, and are further 
placed in a special relation to particular parts of this centre 
(in the sense of the lowest segments of the bowel being 
jnost actively aroused by the galvanic or other stimulation 
of a lower segment of the cerebro-spinal mass than would 



FUNCTIONS OF THE LARGE INTESTINE. 229 

be the best locality whence to excite the duodenum or the 
stomach), yet that the intestine and its sympathetic nerves 
are both so far independent of the spinal cord, as that 
their nervous actions survive its destruction. In short, 
the connection of the sympathetic with the cerebro-spinal 
systems, and the relation of intestinal movement to spinal 
irritation, is neither more nor less complete and direct 
than the anatomy of the communications between these 
two great divisions of the apparatus of innervation would 
lead us, a priori, to infer. 

The contents of the large intestine have been alluded to 
as of two kinds. The first is a mass which ranges in con- 
sistence from a thin liquid to a hard friable solid; and, 
when evacuated from the rectum, constitutes the ordure, 
faeces, or excrement. The second is an elastic or gaseous 
fluid, which occupies the intestine in variable amount ; 
and, unless present in excess, is not necessarily evacuated 
in any perceptible quantity at all. 

Digestion in the large intestine doubtless continues and 
completes many of those metamorphoses which the contents 
of the canal begin to undergo in its uppermost segments. 
These metamorphoses, however they may be aided by 
spontaneous decomposition of the alimentary substances, 
are chiefly due to the agency of the secretions poured into 
the canal. But, beside that the absence of villi entitles 
us to believe the absorption of fatty substances (such 
as are readily taken up by the colon and rectum from 
enemata introduced here) to be effected in the large intes- 
tine chiefly by the blood-vessels, there are grounds for 

Q3 



230 DIGESTION. 

believing that the general processes of absorption and 
secretion are modified in this segment of the tube. Of 
these two processes, the former seems destined to extract 
from the intestinal contents whatever is slowly dissolved 
in its watery parts. While the process of secretion pours 
forth fluids which, from their proximity to the anus, 
may be assumed to be in great extent excrementitious. 
Histologically, indeed, the excretions of the large intestine 
may be divided into two chief constituents : a structureless 
alkaline fluid furnished by the tubes; and a scaly epi- 
thelium, which desquamates from the mucous membrane of 
the rectum, and is usually mixed with scantier quantities 
of columnar cells from the colon. 

And, further, each of these three a-cts of metamorphosis, 
absorption, and secretion, reacts upon the other two. The 
soluble products of metamorphosis undergo absorption, Bfi 
also portions of the secretions. These secretions, again, 
modify the spontaneous changes which would otherwise 
be undergone by the contents of the bowel. Finally, 
during the slow transit of the contents of the intestine, the 
various secretions poured into the upper segments of the 
canal undergo various changes and admixtures, which 
precipitate as insoluble some of their ingredients, prior 
.to their expulsion from its lower orifice. 

It was formerly supposed that the ca?cum was the seat of 
a special metamorphosis, which was, in some sense, ana- 
logous to a second gastric digestion ; its mucous membrane 
furnishing an acid secretion, which dissolved certain con- 
stituents of the food preparatory to their absorption. But 
this view is qliite unfounded. Its office is, indeed, exactly 



TIME REQUIRED FOR PASSAGE OF FOOD. 231 

similar to that of the neighbouring segments of the large 
intestine. Its tubes, possessing the same structure as 
those found elsewhere, pour out an equally alkaline secre- 
tion ; which, like the infusion of its mucous membrane, is 
equally incapable of dissolving protein-compounds. Its 
contents, though often strongly acid, are scarcely more 
so than are those of the adjacent colon. And this reaction 
— which is due to the lactic or butyric fermentations va- 
rious starchy or fatty substances undergo when exposed to 
spontaneous decomposition under the moisture and tem- 
perature (103° F.) of the intestinal canal — is found 
chiefly in those parts of its contents which are not in con- 
tact with the alkaline mucous membrane. 

The time during which the contents of the intestinal 
tube sojourn in its different segments is both variable and 
uncertain. In diarrhoea, the whole canal is traversed by 
its contents in one or two hours ; in obstruction, weeks 
and even months may elapse without any transit. The 
average rate can only be conjectured. But it may be 
estimated that the food of a healthy person passes through 
the small intestine in about twelve hours, to sojourn at 
least twenty-four or thirty-six hours in the large intestine, 
prior to the ultimate expulsion of its useless residue from 
the rectum. The importance of that absorption which is 
carried on in the latter segment, is well illustrated by the 
results of any such fistulous opening in the small intes- 
tine, as allows these contents to evade the caecum and 
colon; the subject of such a lesion being generally hurried 
to the grave in a few weeks by the exhaustion (starvation) 
thus brought about. 



232 DIGESTIOX. 

The fceces are referrible to two sources : being derived 
from the food of the animal, on the one hand ; and from 
the secretions of its digestive organs, on the other. Hence 
their composition must depend on (1) the nature and 
amount of the food ; (2) the quantity and quality of the 
secretions; and (3) the degree and kind of those meta- 
morphoses which both these constituents have together 
undergone. 

Subject to conditions so numerous and fluctuating, the 
faeces vary extremely in their physical properties; which, 
as respects their ordinary colour, odour, form, size, and 
consistence, require no description. 

Their colour and odour, which are partially acquired in 
the small intestine, become first distinctly marked in the 
caecum and colon ; where, again, the solidity of the feces 
is sometimes so much increased by the absorption of their 
watery ingredient, that even their expulsion through the 
rectum fails to mould into a cylindrical shape their saccu- 
lated form, corresponding to the colic cells. Both odour and 
colour are derived, in part from the bile ; in part from the 
secretions poured into the intestine by its own structures ; 
in part from that admixture of altered and undigested food, 
which forms so large a constituent of the excrement. 

The ordinary influence of the bile is well seen by the 
results of its absence from the feces in cases where the 
influx of this secretion into the bowel has been arrested by 
disease or injury. In such instances, the colour and odour 
proper to the excrement are exchanged for a greyish white 
hue, and an intensely putrefactive smell. On the other 
hand we have (p. 194) found reason to conclude that, 
under ordinary circumstances, but a small fraction of the 






COLOUK AND ODOUR OF THE F.ECES. 233 

whole biliary secretion escapes reabsorption, so as to ap- 
pear in the faeces. So that, unless the bile be poured out 
in excessive amount, or hurried through the intestines 
with excessive rapidity, this secretion constitutes — as such 
—but a small proportion of the whole faecal mass, however 
powerful its qualitative influence may be. 

The intestinal constituent we may regard as the chief 
excretory ingredient of the faeces; in other words, that 
ingredient, the dismissal of which from the canal is most 
essential to the organism generally. • It too, however, is 
only a residue ; the subtrahend of a very large quantity of 
liquid, by far the larger part of which has been subtracted 
by reabsorption. In the hybernant animal, as well as in 
the foetus, the proportion of this ingredient is raised by the 
absence of food to little less than 90 or 95 per cent, of the 
whole excrement ; the bulk of which thus consists of the 
mucus and epithelium referrible to such sources. 

Doubtless this constituent adds its influence to that of 
the bile in causing the peculiar odour of the faeces. But 
it is quite as certain that, whatever proportionate share we 
may assign to each, the resulting odour must be ulti- 
mately referred, through both of them, to the blood. 
Hence the smell of the excrement of any species of 
animal, is always closely related to that odour which, spe- 
cific to its blood, reappears in various degrees and modi- 
fications in most of its secretions derived from this parent 
liquid. And it is stated by Wehsarg to present differences 
specific to the individual. 

The influence of the alimentary residuum requires no 
assertion. The large proportion of casein seen in the ex- 
crements during the use of a milk diet; their deepen- 



234 DIGESTION. 

ing (and finally black) colour caused by a vegetable food ; 
the lactic acid and bone-phosphates of the excrements of 
Camivora ; the oil visibly mixed with the faeces in patients 
over-dosed with cod-liver oil — are instances, which might 
be multiplied almost indefinitely, of the accuracy of this 
law. Nor is this alimentary residuum contained in the faeces 
in a state of mere admixture, or even decomposition. On 
the contrary, it and its changes react on the secretions of 
the canal, so that its own appearances are modified by the 
addition of properties quite foreign to them. And nothing 
but the comparatively uniform admixture of alimentary 
principles, which is necessary (p. 52.) to the life of the in- 
dividual, will account for even that imperfect uniformity of 
composition, traceable in the excrements of large numbers 
of persons. 

The reaction of the feces is generally acid : sometimes 
neutral or alkaline. The quantity daily evacuated by a 
healthy male adult averages about five ounces avoir- 
dupois. The specific gravity is too variable to admit of 
any estimate. For it varies, not only with the bulk and 
weight of the above constituents (and among these, especi- 
ally of the alimentary residue), but also with the degree 
in which the faecal mass has been condensed by the ab- 
sorption of its water, or lightened by its penetration by 
intestinal gases. The latter condition often enables its 
driest and most solid portions to float upon water, while 
the less solid parts of the same evacuation follow the or- 
dinary rule of sinking in this liquid. 

The mechanical composition of the feces might almost 
be deduced from the foregoing considerations. 



UNDIGESTED FOOD IN THE F.ECES. 235 

Undigested food, for example, forms a large proportion 
(probably one-tenth to one-fifth) of the whole mass. But 
it must be subdivided into two parts, which have a very 
different relation to digestion. 

Of these parts one, which is usually much the larger, 
includes all those substances incapable of being dissolved 
by the various secretions poured into the canal. Such 
are the harder parts of all the animal and vegetable tissues 
used as food : — the sarcolemma of muscle ; the elastic 
fibres of areolar tissue, and much of its white fibre ; 
the membranous walls of fat-cells ; the cells of cartilage ; 
fragments of bone ; together with the husks, shells, pods, 
chlorophyll, epidermis, and various dense membranes, cells, 
vessels, and fibres of vegetable food; and the nutritious 
matters w T hich these often seal up and enclose. 

The other portion of the undigested food consists of sub- 
stances w T hich, though really soluble, have escaped solution ; 
either from their excessive quantity, or their rapid transit, 
or finally from a defective quality or quantity of those se- 
cretions which are their solvents. Of these three causes of 
such an admixture, the first is the most frequent ; and in it 

— as indeed more rarely or abnormally, in both the others 

— we may remark an invaluable safeguard against the 
dangers which would otherwise follow every act of over- 
eating. For in any state of repletion — whether relative 
or absolute — large quantities of fat, muscular fibre, albu- 
men, casein, fibrin, starch, areolar tissue, and other in- 
gredients of the food, escape digestion, and are found in 
the faeces. And since, conversely, both individuals and 
species may have their digestive powers so raised by 



23(> DIGESTION. 

hunger and want as to extract nourishment from sub- 
stances otherwise incapable of digestion, it is evident that 
these two constituents of the alimentary residue — undis- 
solved and insoluble, indigested and indigestible — may 
almost be said to merge into each other. 

The excretory element of the faeces consists chiefly of 
mucus and precipitated bile. This mucus, though for the 
most part structureless, includes variable quantities of 
scaly epithelium from the lower end of the rectum. In 
diarrhoea, numerous columnar cells from the intestine 
are often discernible ; as are also abortive cytoblasts, and 
simple ovoid cells. The latter, indeed, are sometimes 
sparingly present in healthy faeces; and are designated 
mucus-corpuscles. The biliary constituent is seen chiefly 
in the form of minute amorphous masses or molecules of 
a resinous character ; together with crystals or plates of 
cholestearine ; and soluble colouring matter, which often 
stains the above cell-growth, as well the other mechanical 
ingredients of the excrement. 

The crystals of ammoniaco-phosphate of magnesia often 
found in the faeces, both in health and disease, are derived 
from neither of the two foregoing sources exclusively. 
They are probably due to the action of ammonia (de- 
veloped in the feces before or after their expulsion) upon 
that neutral phosphate of magnesia which forms so large 
a proportion of the salts of the excrement. 

As respects any of its further details, the chemistry of 
the faeces varies so widely with the nature and amount of 
their several ingredients, that it is almost impossible to 
deduce any average. As a rule, however, the feces con- 



CHEMISTRY OF THE F.ECES. 237 

tain about 25 per cent, of solids : of which the alcoholic 
extractive, the watery extractive, the insoluble residue, and 
the ash, maybe regarded as each forming about one-fourth. 
With a bulky bread diet, however, Berzelius found the 
insoluble ingredient three times as great as this estimate 
would suggest. But in the absence of information, respect- 
ing their exact sources — alimentary or intestinal — even 
the larger and more constant ingredients of such analyses 
suggest few practical conclusions. We can but conjecture 
that, while the protein-compounds of healthy excrement are 
derived almost exclusively from the food, some of its fat, 
and most of its muco-gelatinous extractive, have a secre- 
tory source. As regards the ash, it would seem that the 
soluble salts form about one-third, a proportion also reached 
by the alkaline and earthy phosphates. The chlorides are 
in a very small proportion (about -fo^ 1 )* equalled (often 
far exceeded) by the sulphates. Potash greatly (ten to 
forty times) exceeds soda ; magnesia reaches the relatively 
large amount of half the lime. The alkaline carbonates 
found in human excrement are probably referrible to the 
decomposition of some organic salts of these bases. And 
others of the foregoing peculiarities, as well as some not 
alluded to here, are probably referrible to the following 
circumstances : — the large addition of certain ingredients 
in the food, as of potash ; the large removal of certain salts 
by other channels, as the chlorides by the urine; and 
the scanty absorption of certain minerals, as of the 
magnesian salts, by the bowel. 

The gases always contained in the large intestine, and 
often expelled from it, may be conveniently noticed in con- 



238 



DIGESTION. 



nection with the similar gases which are found in the stomach 
and small intestine. The analyses of Jurine, Magendie, 
Marchand, and Chevreul, maybe summed up as follows: — 



Whence obtained. 






Com posit 


ion by V 


olume. 




o. 


s. 


C0 2 . 


H. 


CH 2 


SH 2 . 


Stomach. . 


11 


71 


14 


4 






Small Intestine 


— 


32 


30 


38 






Caecum 


— 


66 


12 


8 


13 


] 


Colon 


— 


35 


57 


6 


8 


> trace. 


Rectum . 


— 


46 


43 


— 


11 


1 


Expelled per anum 


— 


22 


41 


19 


19 


i 



To such a summary of their composition we may ap- 
pend the following observations on their probable nature 
and sources. 

1. Air is habitually introduced into the alimentary tube 
from without the body : by some persons voluntarily, as 
an act of deglutition or eructation ; by all persons in the 
ordinary act of swallowing, in a state of mechanical 
adhesion to the bolus of food, as well as of minute division 
in the frothy saliva. The air thus introduced into the 
stomach undergoes a process of diffusion or interchange 
with the elastic fluids dissolved in the blood of the gastric 
capillaries ; a diffusion which converts it into a mixture 
containing less oxygen, but more carbonic acid, and in 
a degree varying with the duration of its sojourn in the 
stomach. 

But the gases of the stomach are evidently derived 
chiefly from some other source. For the quantity thus 



GASES IN THE ALIMENTARY CANAL. 239 

introduced is small: while the stomach and intestines 
may be generally shown by percussion to be largely oc- 
cupied by gases. And not only is the increase of carbonic 
acid disproportionate to the decrease of oxygen, but a new 
element, hydrogen, is added. The same arguments apply 
even more strongly to the aeriform contents of the intestines. 

2. Gases are developed in the alimentary canal by the 
decomposition of the food it contains. There can be little 
doubt that such fluids are chiefly due to this process. The 
metamorphoses which elaborate the food into matters fit 
for absorption, are so easily capable of being pushed a step 
further, and of giving off gaseous fluids, that, though it is 
one of the offices of the various digestive juices to repress 
and prevent all decomposition or putrefaction in the strict 
sense of these words, still some fraction of the food ge- 
nerally escapes their complete influence, and under the 
heat and moisture present in the canal, is converted 
into gaseous fluids, similar to those producible by de- 
composition without the body. Indeed, it is obvious that 
nothing short of the most exact adjustment of the various 
secretions, both in quantity and quality, to the several 
alimentary constituents of the food, could be expected 
altogether to obviate such an evolution of gaseous fluids. 

Such a process exactly accounts for both the nature and 
proportions of those constituent gases noticed in the above 
table : as well as for the ammonia which is probably 
precipitated from them in the triple salt of magnesia 
formed within the intestines. And not only is this view 
confirmed by the known composition and reactions of the 
food, but the conditions known to favour or oppose flatulence 



240 DIGESTION. 

remarkably substantiate its accuracy. Too large a quantity 
of food, too defective a quantity or quality of digestive 
secretions, notoriously increase these gases to the degree 
termed " flatulence." And many kinds of food are equally 
influential ; sometimes by the fermentation they set up (as 
in cattle surfeited by moist green food), sometimes by the 
composition (sulphur forming sulphuretted hydrogen, as 
in animals largely fed on beans) they possess. Further, 
while the remarkable variations in different analyses sug- 
gest some cause not less variable than the food, and are 
very unlike the comparatively constant composition of 
animal products and tissues, it is well known that the 
absence of all flatus, and the contraction of the intestine 
into a narrow thick white tube, constitutes one of the 
evidences of death by starvation. 

3. Another source of flatulence suggests itself in the 
case of various constitutional diseases : namely, the evolu- 
tion of gases by the decomposition or putrefaction of fluids 
derived from the organism itself. That gases may be thus 
evolved in cavities of the body seems established by various 
authentic cases of physometra ; where the elastic fluids 
which distended the uterus could only be referred to such 
a source. And, from analog}', it seems probable that, in 
various disorders known to be attended with a peculiar 
proneness of the fluids to putrefaction, the spontaneous 
decomposition of the inc/esta contained in the digestive 
tube, favoured by heat and moisture, and unchecked by 
the action of healthy digestive juices, is accompanied and 
furthered by a kindred decomposition in these depraved 
and altered secretions themselves. 



GASES IN THE ALIMENTARY CANAL. 241 

4. It has often been supposed that gases are set free in 
the intestinal canal, by a process of secretion or transpira- 
tion from the blood. But a careful inquiry justifies the 
denial of such an occurrence. For, to say nothing of the 
complete inapplicability of the term * secretion " to a pro- 
cess which, if it occurred, would, from all analogy, con- 
stitute an act of diffusion of the same kind as that which 
obtains in the lungs and skin, — all the facts hitherto 
ascertained concur to disprove even this qualified evolution 
of these gases from the blood. As already noticed, the 
gases found in the intestines are, both in quantity and 
quality, precisely those which would be evolved by the 
decomposition of the various substances used as food ; and 
under circumstances of complete and sudden starvation, 
are often entirely absent from a great part of the alimen- 
tary canal. Some of them — such as hydrogen, carburetted 
hydrogen, and sulphuretted hydrogen — have never been 
detected in the blood in that appreciable quantity, which 
would be necessary to explain their evolution from it. 
Nor can any parallel to such a gaseous excretion be found 
even in the case of those structures which, like the lungs, 
are specially organised with reference to the giving out, 
from the blood, of certain of its gases, and the taking in 
of others from the surrounding air. For the gases just 
alluded to, as absent from the blood, are equally deficient 
in the air of exspiration ; nay more, involve, directly or in- 
directly, a deoxidation of water, such as is not only without 
parallel in the chemistry of the organism, but is curiously 
opposed by that oxidation of hydrogen which forms about 
a pound of water daily (p. 10) in the healthy human subject. 

B 
ll 



242 DIGESTION. 

While the carbonic acid and nitrogen common to flatus 
and to exspiratory air are scarcely less distinguished by their 
quantitative relations, than are the other intestinal gases 
by their presence and absence respectively. In round num- 
bers, we may estimate that flatus contains ten times the 
proportion of carbonic acid, and two hundred times the 
proportion of nitrogen, in the air exhaled from the blood 
by exspiration. And although, in favour of the secretion 
of gases by the digestive tube, many authorities quote the 
well-known experiment by Magendie, in which the deliga- 
tion of the empty intestine of a healthy dog was soon fol- 
lowed by its distention with flatus ; yet the inconclusiveness 
of this argument will sufficiently appear, when it is pointed 
out, that the experiment does not exclude all alimentary 
matter. 'On the contrary, since one grain of starch or 
sugar would yield, by decomposition, gases capable of 
occupying about eight cubic inches of space, no such ex- 
periment can exclude the presence of sufficient food to 
account for the gases of the resulting distention : — can 
approach, indeed, the trustworthiness of the contrary 
observation, as to the empty and contracted state which 
often results from starvation. 

The gases expelled from the rectum carry with them the 
characteristic odours of the excrement : with which it is 
probable they are mechanically impregnated, as a result of 
mere contact and diffusion in the bowels. But it is also 
probable, that the introduction of certain foetid substances 
into the blood is followed by their specific determination 
to the mucous membrane of the intestinal tube, as the 
destined channel of their elimination from the svstem. 



CIRCULATION OF DIGESTIVE SECRETIONS. 243 

For it is well known that, after the inhalation of any 
offensive odour, both faeces and flatus often exhibit what 
is unmistakeably the same odour, in a comparatively con- 
centrated form. And the active diarrhoea which frequently 
attends this reproduction of the original odour, seems but 
an increased effort of Nature, to remove what both the 
special sensibility of the olfactory organ, and the organic 
irritability of the intestinal canal, alike testify to be noxious 
to the system at large. 

How far the expulsion of these gaseous fluids is deter- 
mined by their quality, as well as quantity, remains un- 
decided. We are equally ignorant how far, failing all such 
expulsion, these gases may be absorbed into the blood ; 
and if so, where, and in what form, they emerge from the 
vascular system. The smallness of that quantity of sul- 
phuretted hydrogen which is really present in the most 
offensive flatus, and the comparative harmlessness of its 
carburetted hydrogen in those proportions in which alone 
it could be dissolved by the blood, prohibit any deductions 
based on the ordinary physiological action of these two 
gases. We can but conjecture that whatever absorption 
they may undergo is slow enough to allow all accumulation 
to be prevented by such an oxidation — whether in the 
lungs or elsewhere — as would necessarily destroy all their 
poisonous qualities. 

Lastly, the subject of Digestion would be very incom- 
pletely noticed without some allusion to another relation 
borne by this function to Nutrition in general. The admir- 
able researches of Bidder and Schmidt conclusively show, 

R 2 



244 DIGESTION. 

that the various secretions which effect the elaboration of 
the food are habitually poured out in very large quantities. 
Of these quantities, again, so small a proportion leaves 
the alimentary canal with the fseces, that the bulk of every 
such secretion may be regarded as poured into one part of 
the tube, to leave it, by resorption into its blood-vessels, in 
another and lower segment. What between bile, saliva, and 
the gastric, pancreatic, and intestinal juices, from twenty 
to twenty-five pounds of liquid, with solid contents which 
average about three per cent., are daily undergoing a slow 
continuous cycle of movement, as a kind of intestinal 
offshoot of the general current of the blood. The changes 
or elaborations of these secretions themselves remain in 
great part unknown. But even presuming them to be far 
less important than all analogy would indicate, their in- 
fluence in merely furthering the general changes of Nu- 
trition must be very considerable : aiding, as they would 
necessarily do, that general exchange of substance which 
applies the ingredients already rendered effete and ua 
by one part of the body, to the nutrition and function of 
another. Or — to adopt the readiest illustration — ji> 
a liberal supply of water, the universal solvent and carrier 
of the nutritive process, defers and protracts (p. 66) the 
process of starvation, so the stimulation of the digestive 
organs by the ingestion of food may aid Nutrition, quite 
apart from the nourishment it more slowly prepares fc - 
similation to the system. Proofs of this action are. indeed, 
familiar incidents of the records of hunger and starvation : 
in which substances themselves (quantitatively or qualita- 
tively) little or not at all nutritious, have often been found 



LABOUR OF DIGESTION. 245 

to produce invigorating effects, which, however fleeting, 
have been far too rapid and energetic to be otherwise ex- 
plained.* 

One final reflection must also be added : namely, that 
the magnitude and exactness of the whole digestive pro- 
cess well suggest the wear and tear it implies to the system 
at large ; and the fatigue — if we may use this word in 
so metaphorical a sense — to the organism in general, which 
the excessive ingestion of food, whether relative or abso- 
lute, must necessarily amount to. The practising physician 
sometimes sees patients whose constitutions are thus worn 
out by the mere exertion of good living, uncomplicated by 
any other variety of mental or bodily toil. And even in 
those states of debility which demand careful support, it is 
often a matter of great nicety for him to decide when that 
generous diet which is called for by the symptoms would, 
if pushed any further, begin to oppress and detract from 
the strength it is intended only to support. 

* Among instances of this kind one of the most characteristic is recorded 
in 1 Samuel, c. xiv. yv. 27 — 29. 



R 3 



246 



CHAP. VII. 

VARIETIES OF FOOD. — ANIMAL FOOD. 

Ingredients of Food. — Animal and Vegetable. — Their Mixture natural for 
Man. — Their Variation contingent. — Nutritional Influence of Foods. — 
Contrast of Animal and Vegetable Food. — Varieties of Animal Food. — 
Meat or Flesh. — Its Chemical Components. — 1. Fibrin. — 2. Albumen. — 
3. Gelatin. — Its Sources. — Nutritional Value of it, and of the Collagenic 
Tissues. — 4. Fat. — Its Sources. — Its Kinds. — Its Nutritive Value, in 
Animal, Vegetable Food. — Its Digestibility, as affected by its Kind, by 
Climate. — Its Destiny, when assimilated in Excess. — 5. Inorganic Con- 
stituents, contrasted with those of Blood. — 6. Secondary Organic Com- 
pounds. — Other Kinds of Animal Food. — Organic Muscle. — Heart. — 
Tongue. — Respiratory. Tendinitis, Muscles. — Influence of I 
Sex, Habits of Animal. — Flesh of Birds. — Fish. — Blood. — Brai: H 
Glands. — Bone. — Eggs. — Milk. — Variations in different Animals as to 
Quality, Quantity. — Influence of Date of Lactation. — Physical Arrange- 
ment of Milk. — Cream. — Butter. — Its Components. — Its Nutritive 
Value. — Cheese. — Its Composition. — Its Varieties, — I*- Nutritive 
Value. 

The preceding chapters, which have successively noticed 
the various alimentary constituents found in a typical food 
— milk — and the several structures and functions con- 
cerned in the process of Digestion, will together afford us 
a clue to the composition of the principal varieties of food. 
For, however widely these varieties may appear to differ 
from each other, they will always be found to contain 
representatives of each of these alimentarv constituents. 
And the best food for any particular animal will necessarily 
consist of such proportions of all of these, as will most 



ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD. 247 

exactly correspond to the demands made by the waste of 
its whole body, on the one hand, and to the peculiarities 
of its digestive organs, on the other. 

Organic, as already stated, in its nature, the most obvious 
subdivision of food refers it to the two great forms of Life, 
animal and vegetable. 

A mixture of these two kinds of organic substance must 
unquestionably be regarded as the natural food of man. 
Whether we look to the Biblical announcement of his 
destiny in this respect, or to the more specific line of con- 
duct prescribed to a particular nation, in what must be 
acknowledged as the admirable sanitary code of the 
Hebrew Theocracy ; to the present and past habits of 
the human race in general ; or to those instincts which, in 
the main, these habits express and represent; we meet 
with facts which alike establish this proposition, and com- 
pletely shelve the question of the so-called vegetarian — 
"Is animal food permissible or advisable?" 

But while it is beneath the dignity of science directly to 
moot this last inquiry, the information she seeks, as to the 
natural proportions in which the two kinds of food ought 
to be mixed, indirectly decides it. We look to the teeth ; 
and find them representatives of the cutting, tearing, 
and grinding organs of the Carnivorous, Herbivorous, and 
Grranivorous animals respectively. We unravel the coils 
of the tortuous bowels ; and find them also, in respect to 
their length, their surface, and their distinction into small 
and large intestine, intermediate between the Carnivorous 
and Herbivorous intestinal canal. Nay, more, without 
adopting the numerical argument of the author who con* 

B 4 



248 VAKIETIES OF FOOD. 

siders the numbers of the various kinds of teeth as dicta- 
ting the predominant proportion of vegetable food ; or 
applying a similar numerical test to the human bowel, to 
infer a similar conclusion ; we may so far imitate the ancient 
augurs as to find, in Man's entrails, a clue to various dietetic, 
and even social, details of his Xutrition. With only one set 
of permanent molars, it is clear that he must either be 
as frugivorous as in Paradise, or resort to some kind of 
cookery which may economise these grinding instruments. 
With no paunch attached to his stomach, and but a 
moderate capacity of colon, he ought never to be far from 
his external stores of food, and should probably eat two 
or three times a day. Vegetables, and in large quantity, 
he is clearly intended to consume : the more so that, in 
respect to various details of structure and function, his 
large intestinal surface is gifted with energies far beyond 
what its mere comparative size would imply. Lastly, if 
we may accept the above description of a typical food, it 
is clear that this can scarcely ever be constructed, save by 
an admixture of animal* with vegetable food: the latter 
only approaching the requisite composition in the case of 
a few articles, themselves rarely grown in sufficient quan- 
tity and permanence save by the aid of animal products 
which, in practice, nothiug but the habit of slaughtering 
domestic animals could systematically supply. 

* Of course milk is to be regarded as animal food. For. not to speak of 
its indirectly requiring the sacrifice of life, we must keep to the actual met 
of its source, and ignore any such perversion of terms as would, if carried 
out strictly, cut a steak (like the Abvssinians do) from a living animal 
rather than from a dead one ; and call the former a vegetable food. 



MAN OMNIVOROUS. 249 

But though we may somewhat vaguely assert a mix- 
ture of animal and vegetable diet to be our natural food, 
and may hence regard Man as an Omnivorous (Amphi- 
vorous?) animal, he merits the latter title in a much 
higher sense. For not only can he readily adopt an ex- 
clusively animal or vegetable food, according to the cir- 
cumstances in which he is placed, but he excels all other 
animals in this respect, just as much as he does in that 
diffusion of his species over the whole globe, of which this 
peculiar range of digestive power is at once the general 
cause, and the special condition. 

It is true that there are but few of the Carnivora and 
Herbivora, most strictly so called, in whom careful experi- 
ments would not detect the germs of a capacity for simi- 
lar changes of food : that the Horse and Cow have been 
brought to eat flesh and fish ; and that even some of the 
carnivorous Birds have been gradually accustomed to 
the far more difficult change implied in their feeding on 
grain. But, to say nothing of the psychical differences 
which their unaltered instincts really imply, none of these 
artificial (or rather compulsory) changes at all approach in 
rapidity and ease those which a healthy individual of the 
human species can accomplish, and which circumstances 
often necessitate or recommend to whole tribes and nations. 
Besides, in many animals, the capacity for such changes 
seems almost absent. Some of the frugivorous Quadru- 
mana seem little susceptible of these alterations of diet. 
And there seem to be numerous Insects, which are not 
only strictly limited to a vegetable food, but even to 



250 VARIETIES OF FOOD. 

certain species of plants, or to particular parts of their 
structure. 

The influence of any special kind of food on the 
organism depends, not only upon its chemical, but also 
its physical properties ; in other words, not merely on its 
various constituents, as capable of being shown by chemi- 
cal analysis, but also on their mechanical arrangement and 
admixture. And it must be borne in mind that the 
original properties of food in both these respects are 
capable of being greatly modified by the operations of 
cookery (Chap. XII.). 

Contrasting the general characters of animal and vege- 
table food in these two respects, we must, on the whole, 
assign to the former the highest rank in the scale of dietetic 
value. For the tissues of one animal necessarily contain 
most, if not all, of those organic and inorganic substances 
which are required for the maintenance or construction 
of another; and that, too, in something like the fitting 
proportion of their respective ingredients. As a rule *, 
they are also devoid of downright poisonous constituents. 
Besides these, they offer the equally important advan- 
tages of possessing such a structure, arrangement, and 
solubility, as materially aid their entry into the organism. 
Hence they are not only much more nutritious than an 
equal quantity of vegetable food, and cover more com- 
pletely all the details of the bodily waste, but they are 
also digested and assimilated with far greater ease and 
rapidity. It is for these reasons that the use of animal 
food is so much to be preferred in circumstances in which 

* Some exceptions to this rule will be alluded to hereafter. 



COXTEAST OF AXIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD. 251 

it is desirable speedily to avert any threatened exhaustion 
of the bodily powers. 

Against these advantages possessed by animal food we 
must, however, set off certain disadvantages. It contains 
some substances which, like the gelatinous and horny 
epithelial tissues, seem to be of comparatively little value 
for the purposes of ordinary nutrition. It doubtless in- 
cludes others which are so far noxious as to require speedy 
excretion ; as is the case with urea, and with those secondary 
organic compounds out of which this deleterious principle 
is immediately constructed. Besides, it is generally to 
be regarded as deficient in those non-azotised elements 
which are indirectly so important to the maintenance of 
the due combustion and heat of the body. For the mere 
quantity of fatty matter which it includes rarely suffices to 
make these hydrocarbons a proper substitute for the large 
starchy and sugary constituents of vegetable food ; and 
its quality still further reduces (under all ordinary circum- 
stances) the efficiency of this substitution. Hence for civi- 
lised Man, in temperate climates, we may safely assert that 
no excess of proteinous or of adipose tissues in the food can 
fully compensate the absence of the various hydrates of 
carbon. 

And while the main advantage of vegetable food lies 
in this large ingredient of hydrates of carbon, its disad- 
vantages are equally obvious. It generally contains but a 
small proportion of the protein-compounds. Even this 
limited quantity, again, is often virtually diminished by 
their insoluble state ; or by the indigestible form which 
is implied by their mechanical arrangement in the vege- 



252 ANIMAL FOOD. 

table tissues. Many of its starchy constituents are also 
rendered useless in the same way : being enclosed in hard 
or tough insoluble envelopes, which effectually shield them 
from the digestive process ; or having a composition which 
requires to be altered by a chemical process of metamor- 
phosis before they can be fitted for absorption. It is true 
that some of these disadvantages may be, in great extent, 
obviated by the ingestion of a larger quantity of such 
food, as well as by a more protracted sojourn in the alimen- 
tary canal. But there is often a still more serious defect 
in its inorganic constituents ; which, in various kinds of 
vegetable food, appear quite insufficient to replace the 
salts lost by the waste of the organism. Thus the ash of 
some esculent vegetables is peculiarly deficient in phos- 
phates ; that of others, in the equally important ingre- 
dients of soda and chlorides. Lastly, the poisons contained 
in many plants constitute another objection to vegetable 
diet: an objection which is, however, generally obviated by 
the instinct of animals, the experience of Man. or the 
purification which the process of cooking often affords. 

Varieties of animal foocL — The muscular substance, 
together with more or less of its interstitial and investing 
adipose and areolar tissue, constitutes what is called flesh 
or meat in the ordinaiy acceptation of these words.* 

* The changes of meaning gradually undergone by various words in our 
vocabulary of diet, are curious and significant. Food, in old and accurate 
English, includes (and ought still to include) all kinds of nourishment : and 
is therefore misapplied when made the antithesis of drink. Meat, again, 
formerly included all aliments chiefly solid ; and was thus contrasted with 
drink, in an antithesis which its derivation (matyan, Anglo-Saxon, to eat) 
and relations (the maw or stomach, and the mouth) justified and confirmed. 



ANATOMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF MEAT. 253 

The mechanical subdivision or dissection of an ordinary 
" joint of meat " might of course be made to reveal most 
of the numerous structures which unite to form its mass. 
] Fragments of bone, cartilage, fibro-cartilage, or ligament, 
would probably be recognised as foreign bodies. Apart 
from these, however, the naked eye might distinguish more 
I or less of the fatty subcutaneous panniculus upon the 
I muscular layer ; the fibrous expanses or fascice that bind 
down the muscles and isolate them from each other ; and 
a quantity of adipose and areolar tissue lying beneath these 
fasciae, and further passing in between those larger and 
smaller bundles into which the primitive fibres are united to 
construct any muscle. Adding to these textures the nerves, 
arteries, capillaries, and veins, distributed to the con- 
tractile masses ; with the variable and often large quantity 
of blood these vessels enclose; and the almost unknown 
fluids which soak the whole mass, with qualities dictated 
both by the blood and by the particular tissue they occupy ; 
and also considering the various and complex tissues revealed 
by the microscope in these organs ; as well as the sarco- 
lemma, nuclei, and sarcode of the primitive fibrils them- 
selves : — it becomes evident that a piece of flesh is in reality 
the mechanical aggregate of a vast number of structures, 



This wider import is retained by the (cognate?) French word mets. 
What we now call meat, again, formerly required to be distinguished as 
flesh ; a distinctive term which, sometimes added to the preceding (flesh- 
raeat), seems to have been in common use at least as late as the time of 
De Foe. The derivation of the word is obscure : but it was clearly used 

'■ to denote the solid muscular tissues (as in the common antithesis, "flesh 
and blood") of the body: and the distinction offish, flesh, and fowl, was a 

i loose and inexact one, no way modifying its accurate meaning. 



254 ANIMAL FOOD. 

which are capable of being mixed with each other in 
almost infinite variety in any succession of specimens. 

The chemical composition of meat must therefore vary 
with a host of circumstances. Not merely the species of 
animal, for example, which has yielded it ; or the part of 
its body from whence it is taken ; but its age ; sex : food : 
habits ; and doubtless even its individual peculiarities ; — 
all modify the constituents and the qualities of the meat. 
And while some of these modifications can be traced in its 
chemical analysis, and others are equally visible as quan- 
titative details established by the mechanical subdivision 
of its above constituents, many more are only made out, 
either by the delicate inquiries of smell and taste, or by 
equally delicate nutritional results. 

The average composition of the lean of beef may be 
stated at 77 per cent, of water, and 23 per cent, of solids. 
Of the latter, the following are the chief ingredients. 

1. Syntonin, or muscular JUyrm 3 is a variety of this prin- 
ciple distinguishable from ordinary healthy blood-fibrin 
by some peculiarities ; among which a larger watery con- 
stituent, a diminished solubility in solutions of saltpetre 
and of carbonate of potash, and greater solubility by dilute 
hydrochloric acid, are perhaps the most marked. It forms 
about 16*5 per cent, of the whole mass, and is derived 
chiefly from the contents of the sarcolemma ; increased, 
in all probability, by a small admixture of ordinary fibrin 
from the blood-vessels of the muscular mass. Its compo- 
sition seems to be identical in the sarcode of both the 
striped and unstriped varieties of muscle. 

2. Albumen, forming about 2*5 per cent., must doubt- 



GELATIN. 255 

less be referred even more decidedly to the same double 
source, though it also comes chiefly from the sarcode itself. 

3. Gelatin, derived mainly from the areolar tissue 
which lies between the primitive fibres, in quantities which 
indicate the substance yielding it to be present in the 
muscular mass in a proportion of about 2 per cent., has 
long been the object of a controversy, which has even yet 
scarcely decided its chemical position, much less its nutri- 
tive value ; and which, despite its inherent importance, as 
well as its value as an illustration of the difficulties of the 
physiology of food, can be but briefly alluded to here. 

Produced in large quantities by boiling various tissues of 
the body (skin, bone, tendon, and the like) known to pos- 
sess little nutritious value, gelatin or jelly had nevertheless 
long enjoyed a certain empirical repute ; both as an aid to 
other alimentary compounds, and especially as an ex- 
cellent adjuvant and preservative* of the more valuable 
liquids and solids derived from meat. Hence, when Papin 
obtained it in much larger quantities by the long boiling 
of bones under a high pressure in his " digester," the ex- 
aggerated views entertained of its value were too easily 
accepted. These views were indeed carried still further 
by subsequent French inquirers ; who were inclined to 
assert for gelatin a rank so pre-eminent in the scale of 
food, as to consider a gelatin lozenge a substitute for all 

* For example, the dish called an aspicTc (which name, by the bye, pre- 
sumably alludes, less to its having the venom of the asp, than to (cespen) its 
tremulous expectancy of being eaten) is a good illustration of the use of 
gelatin in preserving the delicate odour and flavour of the solids it enve- 
lopes, as well as of the albuminous and extractive matters which permeate its 
own mass. 



256 ANIMAL FOOD. 

other aliment, and (for such phrases were seriously used) 
every knife-handle or toothpick made of bone or ivory as 
so much valuable material robbed from the general stock 
of human food. A gelatinous solution, mixed or unmixed 
with soup, had even been adopted at some Parisian Hos- 
pitals, as a large constituent of their dietary. 

At this time, a committee of the French Academy in- 
quired into its virtues; with the result of finding it not 
only insufficient as a food, but useless as an aid to other 
alimentary substances. And, confirmed as their state- 
ments were by a subsequent commission of the Institut at 
Amsterdam, the proposition — that gelatin is devoid of all 
nourishing qualities whatever — perhaps remains dominant 
to this da}^. 

And yet, on general grounds, the homely adage which 
dissuades children from S€ teaching their grandmothers to 
suck eggs," is perhaps fairly applicable to the iufancy of 
science, instructing the venerable experience of thousai 
of years on what is too often the great task of human life, 
the maintenance of bodily nutrition. While, to pass from 
generalities to details, the usefulness of gelatin, which 
seems thus deducible from instinct and experience, is con- 
firmed by a careful consideration of all the facts hitherto 
established. 

Modern chemistry finds that long boiling in water pro- 
duces, from three kinds of connective tissue, at least three 
varieties of gelatinous substance : one largely yielded by 
the tissues already mentioned in the form of ordinary jelly 
or glue ; another, the chondrine far more slowly formed by 
the similar treatment of cartilage ; and a third, perhaps 
even a fourth, from the yellow or elastic tissue of the 



PHYSIOLOGY OF GELATIN. 257 

Mammal, and from the skeleton of the cartilaginous Fishes 
respectively. And we have seen (pp. 16, 50) that the com- 
position of gelatin is contrasted with that of protein 
chiefly in its smaller proportions of carbon and hydrogen ; 
while, as regards its origin, it can scarcely have any other 
source throughout the whole Herbivorous division of 
animals than a metamorphosis (probably regressive) of 
their albuminous tissues.* 

The physical and chemical properties of gelatin seem in- 
timately related to each other in the circumstance that both 
point to a high degree of cohesion, causing this substance 
readily to assume the solid form. And the tissues yield- 
ing it are chiefly distinguished by their mechanical offices ; 
which are mediated, we might almost say, by degrees and 
kinds of cohesive force, well represented by the tenacity 
of tendon, and the very diverse elasticities of bone, 
cartilage, and yellow fibrous tissue. Their scanty vascular 
supply, and their dilute nutritional fluid, sufficiently in- 
dicate the relative slowness of their nutrition. 

On the other hand, however, with tissues like these, no 
arrangements can obviate a large waste by friction. And 
the extreme solidity and cohesion of the material of these 
collagenic tissues, though only in consonance with the 
wonderful skill of its arrangement, leave (as in the arti- 
cular cartilages) valid evidence of an unavoidable and con- 



* The comparison, both of equivalents, and of percentages, would be 
equally compatible with the view of an accumulation or excess of nitrogen 
and oxygen, in gelatin, as contrasted with protein. But such a construc- 
tive or progressive metamorphosis of the latter substance, though not im- 
possible, is far less probable than the converse action assumed above. 

S 



258 .ANIMAL FOOD. 

stant wear and tear, which is produced by their continual 
attrition. 

Some preliminary objections might well be taken against 
the inferences drawn from those experiments on animals 
above alluded to. For in all, gelatin is at first eaten 
eagerly, and for a time defers starvation. AVhile in some, 
the nutritiveness of gelatin is even more decidedly sug- 
gested, by positive experiences, which, as such, claim a 
greater value than their contradictory and negative results. 
But in all, the absence of complete analyses, and still 
more the presence of some degree of inanition, invalidate 
their conclusions ; at any rate, remit these to be established 
by experiments in which it is expressly sought to replace 
part (and that exclusively the proteinous part) of a food, 
found by observation to be sufficient for health, by the 
substitution of gelatin. Certainly the results of these 
Commissions render it probable that a portion of the 
albumen of a mixed diet might thus be substituted. Xor 
is it irrelevant to point out that, by parity of reasoning, 
both the white and the yolk of egg might be proved in- 
nutritious, in defiance of the experience that (whatever 
may be the case with Dogs) they are highly nourishing for 
Men, and are destined to be, for a time, the sole food of 
the embryo Bird which they enclose. 

The discovery of digested gelatin in the urine, after its 
injection into the veins, has been alleged as a proof of its 
innutritious character. But the fact may be contradicted, 
on the one hand. And the deduction may be demurred 
to, on the other. For Frerichs failed to find any such 
elimination. And Bernard has since extended a similar 



NUTRITIVE VALUE OF GELATIN. 2£9 

statement to peptone, as being also eliminated by the 
kidneys when injected into the systemic vessels. 

Again, the statement of Frerichs, that the ingestion of 
much gelatin raises the proportion of urea in the urine, 
is one which, true as it undoubtedly is, no way militates 
against the nutritive properties of this substance ; save by 
arguments which, carried to their legitimate conclusions, 
would allege the same proposition respecting albumen, 
the large ingestion of which is followed by a like result. 
There is nothing to render it impossible that part of the 
gelatin thus ingested is assimilated, and that the surplus 
only is decomposed in the blood or the nutritional fluid, to 
be afterwards eliminated in this form. Boussingault* does, 
indeed, distinctly find such a partial disappearance of the 
gelatin of ingestion from the excretions, as can only be 
accounted for by supposing it really applied to the enrich- 
ing of the fluids, if not to the construction of the solids, 
of the organism. 

But it must further be pointed out, that even to assume 
the accuracy of such statements as the foregoing respecting 
the inefficacy of gelatin, would scarcely suffice to establish 
the validity of all those objections to the usefulness of 
the so-called gelatinous tissues which have been raised 
upon them. Eemembering what gelatin really is — an 
educt rather than a product ; certainly a very imperfect 
and dilute solution of some of the tissues which yield it ; 
a weak bulky hydrate of some constituent or constituents 
of the collagenic structures — we cannot fairly rest the 

* Comptes Rendus, Sept. 1846. 
s 2 



260 ANIMAL FOOD, 

nutritive value of these on the nutritive efficacy of such a 
feeble and inefficient representative. 

These structures themselves, for example, dissolve 
rapidly and completely, under the influence of the gastric 
juice, into liquids quite undistinguishable from true pep- 
tone. Cubes of solid massy tendon, or even of no less 
massy yellow ligament *, thus dissolve in large proportions 
in a natural or artificial gastric juice. And parings of 
articular cartilage experience an even more rapid solution. 
All are thus converted into limpid transparent solutions, 
which are devoid of the reactions of either gelatin or 
chondrin respectively. 

It is equally certain that, besides undergoing the gastric 
metamorphosis, and assuming the form (peptone) of its 
product, these tissues share the alimentary virtues of the 
protein-compounds. Tendon, ligament, bone, cartilage, 
white and yellow fibre, nourish Dogs and some other C - 
nivora for great lengths of time, with little decrease of 
their weight, or detriment to their health ; although the 
albuminous constituent of these tissues is far too small to 
suppose it the only azotised principle assimilated. 

We must therefore remember that, great as may be 
the difference, for all nutritive purposes, between gelatin 
or its congeners, and the tissues which yield them, there is 
no reason for supposing these artificial extracts absolutely 
inert or valueless. That their value is so far proportional 

* In the experiments on artificial digestion above alluded to. I hare 
found that the chondrogenic mass (^as in the elastic ligamentum nucha of 
the Ox) dissolves more slowly, and in smaller quantity, than the eollagenie 
tissues ; which are easily taken up in three or four hours, at a heat of 
103° F., and in four times their weight of artificial gastric juice. 






USES OF GKELATlff IN FOOD. 261 

to their solidity, as that the jelly they deposit on cooling 
is the most valuable nutritive element of a meat-broth, we 
may utterly deny. But we are quite entitled to assert 
that they are nourishing in that twofold sense already as- 
signed to this term : — capable of undergoing a true assi- 
milation, on the one hand ; as well as a combustion which 
developes heat, on the other. While, as regards the tissues 
yielding them, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish 
them from even the richest and best meats, save in the 
differences (relative to degree and not to kind) of their 
being digested with more slowness and difficulty, and as- 
similated at a corresponding disadvantage. That, in under- 
going assimilation, gelatin should tell first and most upon 
the tissues most akin to its own composition — namely., 
upon the various collagenic structures which Haller long 
ago estimated to form one half of the whole body — would be 
only in consonance with all we know of Nutrition generally. 
Certainly it is difficult to appreciate the argument, that 
because some animals eat none of these " gelatinous" tissues, 
therefore all others, who eat them enormously, do so in vain. 
But besides these, its alimentary properties, gelatin 
has other uses in reference to the preparation and diges- 
tion of food. The mechanical advantages of its con- 
sistence (especially in the form of collagenic tissue) in 
stimulating the organs of digestion, must not be over- 
looked. Its value as an agent in the preparation of food 
is even more important. Not only does its admixture 
confer on other alimentary ingredients an increase of 
surface, such as renders them more digestible ; but we ma}' 
claim for it a capacity for dissolving various of the ingre- 

s 3 



262 ANIMAL FOOD. 

dients of flesh, as well as for inaugurating a process more 
definitely akin to their digestive metamorphosis by the 
gastric juice. In this manner, it can hardly be doubted 
that the formation of gelatin plays an important part in 
many processes of cookery; aiding the solution of al- 
bumen and its congeners, as well as enriching the mass by 
the addition of its own dissolved ingredients. 

4. The fat of ordinary meat is a still more important ad- 
juvant to the muscular fibre in a dietetic point of view. 
In the flesh of animals artificially fattened, the fat often 
attains a proportion only limited by the degree in which 
the muscular bundles are artificially cleaned of their 
investing and interstitial areolar tissue, which is laden 
with an enormous mass of this kind. And even after all 
fat visible to the naked eye has thus been removed, large 
quantities are still to be detected by analysis. Thus Von 
Bibra has found fractions ranging from one-twentieth in 
wild animals like the Hare and Deer, to one-fifth in Ox- 
beef. And, to judge by the microscope, the analysis of 
the flesh of cattle fattened by stall-feeding would often 
show even this large proportion to be greatly exceeded. 

The sources of this varying proportion of fat must be 
sought, not only in those minute fragments of adipose tissue 
which the most careful dissection leaves attached to the 
areolar septa of the muscle, and along the exterior of its 
vessels, but in its nerves ; in its blood ; in the granules 
around the nuclei within the sarcolemma of its pri- 
mitive fibres ; nay, more, in the sarcous contents of these 
fibrils themselves: — in which latter disease, or repletion, 
or even (as in the uterus) a normal process of decay, some- 



FOEMS OF FAT IN THE BODY. 263 

times causes a visible substitution of sarcode by fatty 
matter ; and analogy indicates a constant, though smaller, 
constituent of the same kind. 

The term "fat" is thus just as little of a specific appella- 
tion in a dietetic, as it is in a pathological, sense. Stored 
up in large cells as adipose tissue ; dissolved as a scanty 
ingredient in the blood ; entering largely into the delicate 
pulp of the nervous system ; and, lastly, formed within the 
sarcolemma by the regressive metamorphosis of the mus- 
cular substance or sarcode : — it is clear that fat constitutes 
no such single and simple physiological product, as would 
probably be amenable to the same solvents, or subservient 
to the same purposes, in the economy ; and would thus be 
susceptible of a common description. 

Looking to the adipose tissue, which certainly forms by 
far the largest proportion of the fat contained in ordinary 
meat, we find that its fatty substances are enclosed in large 
nucleated cells, the walls of which consist of a tough mem- 
brane probably of a chondrinous or gelatinous (rather than 
proteinous) nature, and therefore extremely difficult of 
solution. Hence its mechanical arrangement greatly op- 
poses its digestibility. 

The chemical composition of the fat contained in these 
cells seems no less influential. In other words, it is 
certain that all fats are so far difficult of digestion, as to be 
only taken up in small quantities at a time. And though 
it is customary to group the fats of the adipose tissue ac- 
cording to their predominant ingredients of stearine, mar- 
garine, and elaine — and especially to instance the first, 
the solid ingredient of beef- or mucton-suet, as being far 

s 4 



2G4 ANIMAL FOOD. 

more difficult of digestion than either of the other two — 
yet I have been unable to meet with any facts on which 
this statement could be conclusively founded. On the 
contrary, experiments on digestion induce me to doubt 
whether there is any great inherent difference of these 
three neutral fats in this respect : all three being equally 
slow of digestion when enclosed in the adipose cell ; and 
even (so far as lean judge*) having no very diverse 
limit when set free from this investing membrane before 
being introduced into the digestive canal. 

In a purely animal diet, the due proportion of this oleagi- 
nous constituent is of indispensable importance. For, with 
the exception of that minute quantity of inosit (or muscular 
sugar) which is proper to the sarcous substance, the fatty 
matters contained in the various tissues of the body are 
the only representatives which this kind of food possesses 
of the two groups of the hydrocarbons and hydrates of 
carbon. Hence in such a diet, fat has to replace, as it 
were, the starchy ingredient of the vegetables which enter 
into a mixed diet. Fat thus constitutes the sole non- 
azotised element of animal food. 

And even in what are often miscalled vegetable diets, a 
large quantity of this animal substance is commonly added 
to the other ingredients of the food. At least there seems 
to be a strong impulse towards such an admixture in the 
most vegetarian nations and races of modern times : an 

* Any slight differences seem fairly referable to (1) the time demanded 
to melt the innermost parts of a solid suety mass in the digestive canal of 
the animal ; (2) the smaller general size (or, conversely, the larger relative 
surface) of the more margarinous and elainous fat-corpnseles : and (3 s ) the 
tougher and less soluble walls in which the larger stearmous cells enclos e 
their contents. 



DIGESTIBILITY OF FATS. 265 

impulse well exemplified in the butter or ghee so copiously 
added by the Hindoo to the rice which forms his staple food. 

But though, as already stated, only a small quantity of 
fatty matter can really be digested at a time, any excess 
over this amount in the food being merely expelled from 
the intestinal canal with the faeces, it is impossible to 
assign an exact limit to the quantity capable of being taken 
up. Indeed there are evidences of very large variations 
of two kinds in this respect. That diverse kinds of fatty 
matter have very different degrees of digestibility, is only 
what we should a priori expect. And whatever may be 
the reasons for doubting this difference in the case of sub- 
stances so closely akin to each other as stearine, margarine, 
elaine, experience and analogy concur to affirm it of some 
other fatty matters, which are less uniform in composition. 
The complex composition of many fats; their volatile cha- 
racters; their acid reactions; their large oxygen constituent; 
and especially their admixture and diffusion in various 
fatty aliments, both with different members of their own 
class and with proteinous or even gelatinous ingredients : — 
quite explain why (for example) cod-liver oil, butter, palm 
oil, and stearine, are found empirically to be assimilable in 
very different quantities, and to possess a very different 
nutritive value. 

And into these variations merge others, which have a 
more general relation to the whole nutritional process, as 
shown in the effect of climate. Thus the quantity of fat 
habitually taken into the human system in the Arctic regions 
seems to be exceedingly large. And while this maximum 
of fatty aliment appears to account for that increased bulk 



266 ANIMAL FOOD. 

which the fatty — and, as regards heat, non-conducting — 
layer beneath the skin of the body (jpanniculus adiposus) 
here seems normally to acquire, it must also be regarded 
as a necessary condition of that increased development of 
bodily temperature, which is obviously demanded in such 
latitudes. The large amount of heat evolved from the 
body in these cold regions ; the increased energy of that 
combustion on which this evolution of temperature de- 
pends ; the excess of oxygen, and deficiency of watery 
vapour, in the dense and frozen air ; and the expenditure 
of nervous (if not also of muscular) force thus implied, 
— all these circumstances concur to explain the vast pro- 
portion of fat which the Esquimaux or Laplander habitu- 
ally includes in his food; and the advantage which the 
European sojourner acquires by imitating the native in this 
respect. On the other hand, it is probable that this fat 
itself illustrates the other condition alluded to, in being a 
complex admixture of several rich fatty and proteinous 
materials, rather than one or two simple fats in a state of 
comparative purity.* 

* Pcmmican, a preparation of meat long known to the aborigines of Xorth 
America as the least bulky and perishable, as well as most nutritions, form 
of animal food, is made by drying the fresh muscular substance rapidly in 
the sun, at a heat probably ranging from 90° to 140° F. or more ; and then 
pounding it to a powder, which is next intimately mixed with an equal 
weight of adipose tissue. Presuming the process of drying to get rid of 
60 or 65 of the 75 parts per cent, of water originally present in the fresh 
meat, the proportion of muscle and fat in the prepared pemmican may be 
regarded as approximating to that ratio (3 to 1 respectively), in which the 
two, when eaten fresh, are found by Arctic voyagers, best adapted to sustain 
health. But the lamented Dr. Kane has recorded his deliberate opinion 
that eyen this substance is far surpassed by the fresh meat of A 
animals, which in itself fulfils all the conditions above alluded to. 



EXCESS OF FAT. 267 

A large excess of fat in the body often brings about pe- 
culiar modifications of that process by which this substance 
is consumed in the system. As before stated, the fat of 
the body may probably be referred to two sources ; to an 
addition of fatty matter from without, and to a meta- 
morphosis of protein from within. And there seem to be 
a variety of alimentary substances which, by economising 
or arresting the waste of the latter variety, produce many 
of the effects of the administration of the former ; so that, 
for example, the ingestion of albumen, starch, sugar, or even 
(though this is a doubtful illustration) of alcohol, tends 
to fatten the recipient scarcely less than if fat were itself 
given with the food. And hence an Esquimaux who eats 
(and contrives to digest) an excess of fat ; an animal 
fed exclusively on this ingredient of food ; a Goose or an Ox 
artificially fattened on starchy aliments ; and a beer-drinker 
who has acquired the typical obesity accurately depicted 
by Hogarth ; — all agree in some of the circumstances to 
which this excess gives rise. Of the fat thus accumulated, 
one part, varying greatly with their health and habits, is 
altogether consumed (p. 11) by the processes of life, and 
escapes from the body as carbonic acid and water. Another 
part escapes half-burnt, as fixed or volatile fatty acids ; 
which latter not only lubricate (and, if need be, defend) 
the skin, but fly off in variable quantities by the lungs. 
Hence an animal starved upon an unlimited allowance of 
fat increases in size during a short period. Its nutrition, 
however, soon suffers ; and it finally dies, with those ap- 
pearances of inanition already (pp. 37, 53) mentioned as 
attending all attempts to maintain life by the ingestion of 



268 ANIMAL FOOD. 

only one ingredient of the normal food. In the later 
stages of this process of starvation, its body gives off* a 
repulsive odour, ascribable to an evolution of volatile fatty 
matters from its skin and lungs. And whether we are to 
regard these acids as derived from the fatty matters formed 
in its body, or from those taken as its food, they can only 
be referred to an imperfect oxidation of hydro-carbons, 
which have been abnormally accumulated in the organism ; 
and which are akin to the copious fatty tissues, and the 
oily excretions, natural (not to say essential) to various 
animals, and to Man in the Arctic regions. 

5. The ash or inorganic constituent of muscle form- 
about 2 per cent, of its mass ; and, though consisting chiefly 
of elements which enter largely into the composition of 
other tissues, is distinguished from the ash of most of these 
by the proportions its several ingredients bear to each 
other. At any rate this is the case with the juice which 
pervades the muscular mass ; especially as regards the im- 
portant ingredients of sodium, potassium, phosphoric acid, 
and alkaline sulphates. Of these it is hardly too much to 
say, that their proportions in the ash of the liquor san- 
guinis are inverted in that of the muscular juice*; a 
difference which is all the more striking when we recol- 
lect, that it is necessarily opposed, and diminished, by that 
admixture of blood, from the vessels of the muscular 
mass, which forms an unavoidable impurity of the mus- 
cular juice. Thus, in this latter fluid, the alkaline sul- 
phates are reduced to a mere trace ; the proportion of 
potash is from two to five times greater, instead of from 

* Leliniann, Pliysiologiselie Clieniie. vol iii p. 91. 



INORGANIC CONSTITUENTS OF FLESH. 



269 



three to twenty times less, than that of the soda; the 
phosphoric acid is from twenty to twenty-five times that 
small fraction of the total ash which it offers in the serum 
of the blood; and, lastly, the chloride of sodium is reduced 
from three-fourths of the ash, as in the serum, to about 
one fourteenth or fifteenth. 

The import of this contrast remains at present un- 
known. But it is perhaps worth noticing that it is 
repeated with tolerable exactness, though on a smaller 
and less perfect * scale, in a comparison of the ash of the 
blood corpuscles with that of the liquor sanguinis. And 
hence, unless we could group together the living blood 
cell and the sarcous contents of the primitive muscular 
fibre, in some way quite foreign to all we know at present 
of their respective offices, it is to the plasma, and not to 
the muscle, that we must refer the chief share in this con- 
trast, remarkable as it is. 

The earthy phosphates must, however, be partially ex- 
cepted from this statement. Forming, as they do, a far 
(4 — 5 times) larger proportion of the muscular, than of 

* The following table exhibits this relation. The analyses from which 
it has been calculated are derived chiefly from the writings of Schmidt 
and Lehmann : — 





In 100 parts of Inorganic Substance of the 


Potash 


Blood Cells. 


Muscular Substance. 


Blood- liquor. 


49 


52 


6 


Soda .... 


13 


8 


46 


Phosphoric Acid . 


18 


68 


6 


Hydrochloric Acid 


26 


H 


49 



270 ANIMAL FOOD. 

the blood, ash ; their lime ingredient is smaller than their 
magnesia. But, if not in this respect, at any rate in its 
total earthy phosphate, the serum surpasses (2 J — 1) the 
corpuscles. 

6. A series of secondary organic compounds completes 
the list of the muscular constituents. Kreatin, kreatinin, 
inosit, inosinic acid, lactic acid, belong to this group ; and 
seem to represent the progress of the sarcode towards two 
very diverse forms of decomposition. The composition of 
kreatin is closely * akin to that of urea ; to the construction 
of which it appears to be either a preliminary, or a collateral 
phenomenon, on the part of the azotised ingredients of the 
mass. Its quantity — about one part per 1000 of muscle — 
by no means invalidates this view ; especially if it be taken 
in conjunction with the small proportion of urea, and the 
trace of kreatinin, hitherto detected in the blood and in the 
muscular mass. The composition of inosit is that of sugar 
generally; and its amount too small to be determined. 
Lastly, the well-known composition of lactic acid, and its 
large quantity (about 6^ parts per 1000), concur with what 
has already (p. 12. et seq.) been said respecting the large 
non-azotised ingredient, and combustive or "respiratory'* 
destiny, of the protein-compounds ; midway between which 
compounds, and the ultimate carbonic and watery products 
of combustion, this substance is supposed to stand. 

The other constituents of muscle hardly demand notice 
in a chemical point of view. The watery and alcoholic 
extracts, for example, yielded by this mass include many 

* Compare the remarks and Table at p. 16. 



VARIETIES OF FLESH. 271 

of the above ingredients ; in various gradations of admix- 
ture, which depend chiefly on their solubility in these two 
liquids respectively. The colouring matter, however closely 
it may be related to that of the blood, is sufficiently shown 
by the microscope to be quite distinct from it ; and to be 
seated in the sarcode, or within the sarcolemma, at an ap- 
preciable distance from the blood itself. 

Varieties of flesh. — In noticing these it is neither neces- 
sary to describe what everybody is acquainted with, nor 
possible to range over the wide field which is afforded by 
animal Life throughout the globe. We shall only allude 
to such of the commoner kinds of meat as are usually met 
with in civilised life ; with reference, too, to such peculiari- 
ties as Physiology can in some degree explain, without at 
all denying that there are many which it cannot. 

The contrast of striped and unstriped muscle is the first 
which strikes us. With a sarcous content of almost 
identical composition, the enclosure of this soft mass in 
the delicate wall of a narrow fusiform cell, instead of in a 
comparatively long and thick tubular sarcolemma, gives 
the elements of the unstriped muscle a greater amenability 
to the digestive process than those of the striped or volun- 
tary muscle. This advantage is increased by the mem- 
branous or flattened expanse which its layers usually assume. 
On the other hand, the smaller amount of its areolar tissue, 
and the close adhesion (and even agglutination) of its ad- 
jacent cells, often oppose great difficulties to their inter- 
stices being permeated by the solvent gastric juice, so as to 
allow their surfaces to be attacked by it. And when to this 
peculiar arrangement is added, as in the case of the gizzard 



272 ANIMAL FOOD. 

of Birds, a massy thickness, the unstriped muscle must be 
regarded as relatively innutritious. It is, however, rarely 
used as an article of food, save in the form of tripe; which, 
properly cooked, is both digestible and nutritious. 

The striped fibre of the different kinds of ordinary meat 
also illustrates many of these collateral peculiarities. Apart 
from its preparation by cookery, it offers the greatest 
variety ; according to the particular muscles which it com- 
prises, and the condition (healthy or otherwise), age, sex, 
species, or class of animal from w T hich it is taken. 

For example, the close, tough, muscular wall of the 
heart — the muscular fibres of which are almost devoid of 
areolar tissue ; twining round and amongst each other, so 
as to prohibit all that relative movement of contiguous 
fibres or bundles which it is the sj^ecial office of the areolar 
tissue of other muscles to mediate and permit, and which 
is here rendered unnecessary by their consentaneous throb 
of contraction — this is, in all Mammalia, a nutritious, but 
indigestible, article of food. Nor is this absence of inter- 
stitial gelatin and fat to be regarded as merely barring the 
access of gastric juice to the surfaces of the apposed fibrils. 
On the contrary, that diffusion and admixture which these 
areolar septa imply, probably lend a material aid to the 
solution, as well as separation, of the bundles and fibres of 
the voluntary muscles, especially as prepared by cookery. 
Similar considerations may be deduced from a contrast of 
various other muscles. The tongue, for instance, shows a 
muscular substance, of which the elementary fibres, small, 
delicate, and branching, are intimately mixed up with a soft 
and ^uosi-nascent form of areolar tissue : as well as with a 



MEAT OF VARIOUS MUSCLES. 273 

large quantity of adipose tissue. Hence the mass is at once 
very digestible, and extremely nutritious.* With a larger 
quantity of collagenic tissues, and with a greater density of 
these tissues themselves, the muscular substratum of the 
facial integuments shows a similar fineness of its fibres, and 
an intimacy of their admixture with the fat which mottles 
many parts of its red mass. It may therefore be regarded 
as possessing similar dietetic advantages. The large coarse 
fibres, and perpetual movements, of the respiratory muscles 
(as in the diaphragm and the abdominal wall) give them a 
twofold disadvantage (see p. 276); a disadvantage further 
increased by the tough areolar tissue, or tendinous fasciae, 
by which their bundles are separated and covered in. Any 
considerable admixture of tendon in its other forms is of 
course equally injurious to the general value of the flesh 
it helps to form ; not only by the less nutritive character of 
the admixture, but especially by its very diverse require- 
ments as regards solution almost frustrating any common 
process of cookery for the muscular and gelatinous tissues 
thus associated. Every housewife knows the difference 
between a beef-steak and a rump-steak ; between a sirloin 
and a sticking-piece ; between the under f and upper side 
of the loin. 

Disease, again, influences the nutritive value of flesh 

* The tongue and hump of a Buffalo are (no matter how tough its meat) 
delicacies for which alone the trapper or huntsman of the prairies often kills 
the animal — a reckless and melancholy waste of animal life, only paralleled 
by that wanton destruction of timber which is one of the most serious, 
though least noticed, of the changes wrought by Man on the surface of 
the earth he inhabits. 

f This, which in French gastronomies figures as the filet, is the piece 

T 



274 ANIMAL FOOD. 

by means of circumstances easy to indicate. Taking the 
word " disease " in its vaguest and widest sense, its pro- 
cesses rob not only the muscular, but the fatty (and even, 
in a minor degree, the areolar) constituents of flesh, of 
much of their substance ; indeed, of their most elaborate 
and nutritive ingredients. Like repeated losses of blood, or 
starvation, most of the exhausting diseases seem specifi- 
cally to involve the albuminous material of the sarcode ; at 
the same time that they lower, or even change, the fibrin 
or syntonin, in addition to diminishing its quantity. 
Hence, quite apart from its proneness to putridity, and 
from those specific maladies which it has been alleged to 
ingraft on those who partake of it, the flesh of diseased 
animals is essentially innutritious ; besides being often 
tough, hard, and provokingly resistant to the mollifying 
influences of cookery. 

Age and sex, again, exercise a well-known influence. 
That the flesh of old animals is tougher than that of 
young ones ; and that an Ox, a Wether, or a Capon afford a 
more tender and succulent muscular fibre than do a Bull, a 
Earn, or a Cock respectively ; are facts which only require 
from science what it can hardly as yet give them : — 
namely, explanations, rather than a mere useless assent. 

Something of this kind may however be attempted. 
Thus it is said that the muscular substance of the young 
animal is richer in albumen. But except in so far as 
this richness is shared by the interstitial areolar tissue, it 

par excellence by which an English convalescent should begin his return 
to the national roast beef. It is said by French gourmets to be best helped 
towards due ''concoction'' by a moderate potation of Burgundy. 



FLESH INFLUENCED BY AGE AND SEX. 275 

is difficult to see how it could increase the value (or even 
the digestibility) of the sarcode ; in which, so far as can 
be judged, this increase of albumen is compensated by 
an equivalent decrease of the equally nutritious syntonin. 
Hence we must seek some further explanation. 

In my opinion, such an explanation must be sought in 
the physiology of muscle, and even in its anatomy as distin- 
guished from its chemical composition. Premising that it 
is by no means unimportant to distinguish between what is 
most digestible, and what is really most nutritious — how 
far a given variety of flesh is capable of being dissolved, 
and how far its substance is of value to the organism when 
the resulting solution is taken up — I should offer the 
following explanation. 

While there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the 
young animal, and the castrated male, all the tissues are 
softer, more watery, and more soluble (i. e. more digestible), 
than in the adult, and in the male, respectively ; that the 
sarcode, sarcolemma, adipose tissue, areolar tissue, tendon, 
fascia, &c, are all less dense and resisting ; the size of the 
primitive fibril also seems to be in both cases of consider- 
able moment. In the young animal, for example, it is in- 
herently much smaller. And, in the castrated male, there 
is good reason to believe it is often incidentally so ; being 
more or less replaced and substituted by adipose tissue; 
which gradually comes to occupy the interstices of the 
muscular bundles and fibres, at the expense of their at- 
tenuated diameter. That such a change is not altogether 
a necessary result of the mere removal of the testicles ; 
but is a natural, though preventible, effect of a change in 

T 2 



276 ANIMAL FOOD. 

the whole animal : is well seen in contrasting the flesh of 
a draught with that of a grazing-Ox. And a precisely 
similar (though greater) interstitial deposit of fat, concur- 
ring with an atrophy of the muscular fibres, may be seen 
even more distinctly in the muscles of healthy human 
limbs which have been disused from the mere inaction 
rendered necessary by fractures. 

The young muscular fibre is, however, the less equivocal 
instance of the two. And here it is desirable to remember 
that (1) the diminution of diameter is, relatively to the 
sarcous mass, an increase of its whole surface of exposure 
to the digestive solvent : and that (2) it is associated with 
a thinner and more delicate, # or more permeable, sarco- 
lemma. 

Conversely, as respects the muscle of animals inured to 
fatigue and toil, it must be remembered that not only is 
the sarcode condensed into a firmer, harder mass : which is 
further enclosed within what is doubtless a proportionally 
thickened sarcolemma ; but that, while its albumen is di- 
minished, and its effete extractive increased, its interstitial 
fat has also decreased ; at the same time that its areolar 
tissue and fasciae have shrunken into a more hardened, 
wiry, and contracted network of fibrous bands. Thus its 
proteinous element is impoverished ; at the same time that 
it is rendered far more difficult of solution : and is further 
deprived of those collagenic and fatty materials which 
help its solution indirectly, almost as much as they in- 
crease the total alimentary value of the mass. 

The chemical peculiarities of the flesh of different class* - 
of animals are as yet scarcely established. 



FLESH OF GAME. 2*7 

The flesh of the various wild Mammals which form part 
of the group of " game " seems to possess many of the 
characters just noticed as producible by sustained exercise 
in their tame or domesticated congeners: such as a smaller 
amount of fat ; a narrower diameter of fibre ; a smaller 
albuminous constituent; and especially, a larger amount 
of those constituents recognised as making up the u ex- 
tractive." Together with these characters, however, such 
meat possesses others apparently more specific : — a richer 
and more complex .flavour ; a darker colour ; and a greater 
nutritive value, and even digestibility, than its mere 
analysis can at present explain. Doubtless many of 
these characters are essentially derived from cognate 
peculiarities of the creature's blood itself; which often 
shows similar, if not equal, differences ; and appears to 
dictate the quantitative relations of some of the muscular 
constituents with even greater regularity than might have 
been supposed.* Indeed, it would seem very probable, 
from the statements of the almost omnivorous hunters of 
America, that each genus, or even species^ of wild animal 
has a characteristic taste akin to that of its blood ; from 
which are derived, not only the flavour of the muscular 
fibre, but the correlative odour given off in the secretions 
of its skin and other organs. 

Similarly characteristic, but unexplained, are the differ- 
ences in the flesh of various Birds. The oily constituent 
of one species ; the fishy flavour of another ; the aroma of 

* or example, the relation of the water"of the serum and of the muscle 
seems (Lehmann, Op. cit. toL iii. p. 95) to survive even the enormous 
change of absolute quantity caused in both by cholera, 

T 3 



278 ANIMAL FOOD. 

the Partridge, Pheasant, Grouse, and others of the game- 
fowl; and the offensive, noisome smell and taste of the 
carrion-eaters; constitute grounds of distinction, which 
analytical chemistry at present scarcely follows into the 
details it may hereafter furnish, decisively as it points to 
the differences of their food as a frequent and partial expla- 
nation. The flesh of the tame Birds commonly made use 
of in this country is said to contain less water and fat, more 
albumen and syntonin, and more of the kreatinous and 
allied compounds, than does ordinary meat. 

The muscular substance of Fish is equally diverse, as 
regards its appearance and flavour. The commoner and 
whiter kinds possess a flesh containing much more water 
and albumen, and much less fibrin and extractive, than 
does ordinary meat. And experience, which indicates Fish 
to be often more easy of digestion than the flesh of Mam- 
mals, though inferior to it in nutritive power, is only 
partially explained by the above deficiency, and by the 
comparative absence of fat and areolar tissue from the 
interstices of its muscular fibres. In some genera, as the 
Salmon, the flesh is much more oily. Bat here — probably 
from the close dense apposition of the fibres, themselves 
evidently containing a richer (and probably more copi> 
variety of syntonin — the increased value of the mass is 
associated with a greater difficulty of digestion. 

Some of these points are illustrated by the following 
Table, which is derived from analyses by Schloesberger, 
quoted in Simon's Chemistry (vol. ii. p. 525). 



BLOOD AS FOOD. 



279 



Ox-beef . 
Veal . . 
Pork . . 

Koe-deer 

Pigeon . 
Chicken . 
Carp . . 
Trout . 



Water. 


Fibrin 


Albumin 


-f vessels. 


-hglobulin. 


77-5 


17-5 


2-2 


79 


15-6 


2-9 


78-3 


16-8 


2-4 


76-9 


18- 


3-3 


76- 


17* 


4-5 


773 


16-5 


3- 


80-1 


12- 


52 


80-5 


111 


4-4 



Extract. 



Alcohol 
-fsalts. 


Watery 
+ salts. 


l"fi 

1-25 
17 

v 


1-3 
1-3 

•8 

> 


Y 

24 



I- 

1-4 
1- 

1-6 



l-o 
1-2 

17 
•2 



(Albuminous) 

Phosphate of 

lime. 



Trace 

•1 
Trace 



•6 
22 



Blood is so rarely made use of as an article of human 
food, save in that variable but small proportion which 
the microscope shows it to be incidentally present in all 
kinds of flesh, that its dietetic aspect would hardly deserve 
notice, save for the singular contrast it offers between what 
seems to be a highly nourishing composition, and a prohi- 
bition by which, for ages past, a large section of Mankind 
have been debarred from its use. 

Abounding, as it does, in the important protein-com- 
pounds of albumin, fibrin, globulin, and the like, its com- 
position would perhaps entitle us to regard it as a very 
valuable article of food. But experience seems to show 
that it has but a moderate value. And the repugnance 
shown by most races of Mankind, and even by many 
animals of prey, to feeding on blood, save under the extra- 
ordinary impulse of great hunger, must also be regarded 
as a suggestion of the same purport. 

Mechanically and chemically, we may find some plausi- 
ble explanations of this fact. First, it is too liquid a food ; 

T 4 



280 ANIMAL FOOD. 

for., in some way or other, the stomach of Man, as well as 
of most Mammals, demands a solid condition of the ingesta, 
as alone affording a proper stimulus to its digestive acts. 
Next, the spontaneous coagulation of its fibrin is plausibly 
supposed to throw this compound into the form of a pre- 
cipitate ; the fragments of which, however small, are com- 
posed of layers densely aggregated to each other. The 
tough (and almost chitinous) composition of the walls of 
its corpuscles seems to afford a still more valid obstacle to 
the complete extraction of their rich albuminous contents. 
The utter insolubility of its large haematine constituent is 
another feature which I have found exceedingly well 
marked in various experiments on the artificial digestion 
of blood which I have instituted with the gastric juice of 
all classes of Vertebrata. Lastly, we may notice the che- 
mical deficiency of its hydrocarbons or fatty constituents ; 
as well as the contrast offered by its salts with those of the 
muscular substance: — a contrast which renders them a 
very insufficient means of supplying, as regards these im- 
portant inorganic constituents, that waste of substance 
which the food ought to compensate. (Comp. p. 268.) 

The brains of animals consist of a scanty admixture of 
membranous and areolar tissues, and of a large quantity of 
vessels, with the structures proper to these nervous centres : 
namely, nerve-tubes and ganglion-corpuscles. Hence, as 
regards its composition, the rich and elaborate albuminous 
and fatty contents of these structures constitute them 
highly nutritious articles of food ; while the delicacy of 
their membranous walls offers little obstacle to the access of 
the various digestive agents to their interior. They are thus 



GLANDS AS FOOD. 281 

excellent articles of food ; especially when mixed with other 
substances capable of affording the requisite mechanical 
stimulus to the digestive organs. 

The various glands possess a dietetic value which is 
derived^ partly from their physical structure and arrange- 
ment, partly from their chemical composition. Thus, on 
the one hand, the dense mechanical texture of the liver 
and kidney oppose their usefulness as food, by rendering 
them comparatively difficult of digestion ; while, on the 
other hand, the bile and urine which they respectively con- 
tain, necessarily superadd the properties of these secretions 
to those of the proteinous parenchyma that forms the bulk 
of their mass. Hence the liver, with its fatty ingredients, 
and recrementitious bile, is far more nourishing than the 
kidney ; which is not only deficient in hydrocarbons, but 
contains a certain quantity of urea, demanding a speedy 
excretion. In like manner, from both mechanical and 
chemical reasons, the pancreas (p. 178) is highly diges- 
tible and nutritious. 

The hard solid texture of bone, and the predominance of 
its gelatinous and calcareous constituents, together render 
it of comparatively little use as an article of human food. 

The eggs of oviparous animals contain, in addition to 
the embryo itself, a quantity of nutritive matter, which is 
•destined for its nourishment during the process of incu- 
bation. Hence, the large eggs of many Birds form an 
excellent article of food ; the dietetic virtues of which re- 
semble, to some extent, those previously attributed to milk. 
The white of egg contains about 15 per cent, of albumen. 
The yolk is composed of about 20 per cent, of the same 



282 ANIMAL FOOD. 

protein-compound ; together with about 30 per cent, of 
fatty matter — chiefly margarin and elain — in a state of 
subdivision and admixture which eminently adapt it to 
digestive purposes. 

Milk. — The general composition of the milk which 
forms the food of the young Mammalia has already been 
mentioned. It only remains for us to notice its chief 
varieties, and some of the articles which its artificial pre- 
paration adds to the bill of fare of the human adult. 

The changes by which, late in the period of gestation, the 
hitherto albuminous fluid contained in the mammary gland 
is converted into milk, are foreign to the purpose of this de- 
scription. ; though it is interesting to point out that not only 
the casein, but even the butter and the sugar, of the true 
secretion seem to be produced by a metamorphosis of the 
albumin previously present.* Nor need we dwell upon the 
composition of the colostrum or bie$tin<js poured out from 
the gland immediately after parturition ; save to say that 
its comparative richness — by turns, in different specimens, 
affecting its casein, its sugar, its butter, or all three con- 
stituents — appears at least in great part ascribable to the 
slow reabsorption of part of the water from milk which has. 
for some time before parturition, occupied the ducts of the 
mammary gland. It is chiefly as regards the milk of 
different species, and its changes during lactation, that 
we need briefly allude to some of the details suggested 
(rather than established) by the various analyses of this 
secretion hitherto made. 

The following Table, constructed chiefly from analyses 

* Simon, Op. cit, vol. ii. p. 2S1. 






MILK OF VAEIOUS ANIMALS. 

quoted or made by Simon and Lehmann, sugg 
important differences of this kind: — 



283 

some 



Human . . . 


Water. 


Solids. 


Casein. 


Sugar. 


Butter. 


Salts. 


Sp. gr. 


88 


12 


3-5 


5 


3-2 


•2 


1032 


(Colostrum) 
Cow. . . . 


82-8 
86* 


17-2 
14 


4 
55 


7 
3-5 


5 
4-5 


•4 

•7 


1033 


(Colostrum) 
Ass .... 


90-65 


16 
9-35 


1-75 


6-6 


12-5 




1029 


(Colostrum) 
Goat . . . 


86-2 


17-2 

13-8 


5-02 


4-6 


3-78 




1036 


Mare . . . 


83-8 


16-2 


1-7 


8-75 


6-95 




1039 


Sheep . . . 


85-62 


14-38 


4 


5 


4-2 




1038 


Dog. . . . 


75 


25 


12 


little 


12 


1-4 


1040 



If we might accept these analyses as giving us real ave- 
rages of the composition of the milk in the above species, 
it would follow that the human milk, save in the ingredient 
of sugar, is surpassed in nutritive solids by that of the 
Cow; the casein and butter of whose milk are from one and 
a half to two-fold more copious than the same constituents 
of the human milk. The milk of the Ass, again, differs 
from both the preceding, chiefly in the large proportion of 
butter, and small one of casein, it contains. The Goat and 
the Mare secrete a milk, as closely allied to that of the Cow 
and Ass respectively, as might be expected from their zoolo- 
gical affinities. The Sheep, again, resembles its ruminant 
allies in this respect. The carnivorous Dog seems to furnish, 
not only a very concentrated, but an exceedingly proteinous 
secretion ; though scarcely sufficiently so, if contrasted 
with its probable quantity, to lend much support to the 
functions ascribed to its congener, the Wolf, in early Roman 
history. 



284 ANIMAL FOOD. 

It may, however, be fairly doubted, both how far these 
analyses can be accepted as averages, and how closely the 
above features correspond to the nutritive value of the 
fluids to which they refer. Experience shows that many 
a child who pines and threatens to die under the use of the 
natural food thus supplied by its mother or nurse, or under 
that of a Cow, is rapidly restored to the most vigorous 
health by the much poorer, thinner fluid secreted by the 
Ass. And while this well-known fact can hardly be ex- 
plained as an inability on the part of the now healthy 
infant to digest what was not, strictly speaking, any real 
previous excess of the casein (the only ingredient di- 
minished by the change), many cognate circumstances 
suggest that the relations not only of this, but of the 
other ingredients of milk — the quantity secreted daily: 
its proportion of water ; and the variable constituents of 
its butter, salts, and even extractives — may all concur to 
prevent any mere analyses like the above from affording a 
valid exponent of its nutritive properties. 

The quantity of milk secreted, under natural circum- 
stances, during the lactation of the human subject, can of 
course be only estimated indirectly. And in a contrast of 
this estimate with that furnished by other Mammals, various 
circumstances must be taken into account. In the human 
female, for example, the milk is evidently subject to what 
are probably the widest variations of all its constituents in 
different individuals. The milch-Cow has been carefully bred 
and trained by Man, so as to throw all its nutritive energies 
and actions into the production of this particular fluid. 
The smaller Mammals might fairly be expected to exem- 



QUANTITY OF MILK. 285 

plify, in this aspect of their Nutrition, that rule, as to 
the rate of this function generally, elsewhere alluded to 
(p. 58). Besides, the number of young many of them 
suckle is a still further drain upon the mother's secretion. 
Hence in estimating the amount of milk furnished daily 
at 1 per cent, of the mother's whole body in the case of 
the Cow, 1 J to 2 per cent, in the Human* female, and 2 to 
3 per cent, or even more in the Dog, we are giving, not 
merely a vague summary of various indirect deductions, 
but one which requires to be taken in conjunction with the 
foregoing considerations. It is possible that the contrast 
above indicated in the proportion of salts may also have 
some physiological cause ; that the variations in the saline 
ingredient (which, amounting to not more than about 2 parts 
per 1000 in the Human milk, attains an average of 7 or 8 
in that of the Cow, and of 14 or 15 in that of the Dog), 
may be referred to the more rapid progress of ossification 
in the latter animals. The nature of the salts — on an 
average, about equally divided between the soluble salts of 
the blood globule, and the insoluble phosphates of bone — 
affords what is sometimes a more direct confirmation of 
this conjecture, in the form of an enormous preponderance 
of the calcareous and magnesian phosphates. 

The still more important differences which have been 
hitherto verified in the milk of a single species, and are 
attributable to time, idiosyncrasy, disease, food, air, and 
exercise, can only be cursorily glanced at here, much as 
they influence the value of milk as an article of food. 

From some analyses of this secretion in two persons, 

* Equivalent to from If to 2|, or 2| pints in the 24 hours. 



286 ANIMAL FOOD. 

L'Heritier concludes that the milk of Brunettes contains 
nearly twice as much casein as that of Blondes ; together 
with about one-half more butter, and one-sixth more sugar. 
This statement confirms a belief generally entertained as 
to the superior qualifications of women of dark complexion 
as nurses. But, without much more extensive observations, 
it cannot be accepted as an established fact. If true, it 
would remarkably complete what we may venture to call 
the structural and functional homologies of the mammary 
gland, all of which concur in regarding it as a highly- 
developed offshoot of the general integuments. 

The continuance of the process of lactation appears to 
modify the milk of the human female, chiefly by increas- 
ing its casein and salts, and diminishing its sugar. The 
ingestion (or rather digestion) of large quantities of fatty 
and starchy food seems to increase its buttery constituent. 
Vigorous exercise diminishes both its butter and its casein ; 
especially the former. Similar circumstances may be 
traced in the well-known details of dairy farming. Apart 
from all the circumstances of preparation, the animal 
and the pasture w r hich concur to give a large yield of 
butter, are rarely, if ever, of equal value as regards cheese : 
which, as a rule, is better furnished by the rich fat pas- 
tures of lowland valleys and meadows. "While the pro- 
duction of butter, as regards flavour if not quantity, is 
favoured by the exquisite fragrance of upland and moun- 
tain grasses, and the pure keen air around them. 

Few more remarkable illustrations of these facts could 
be found, than a narrative of the circumstances which 
sometimes cause a wet-nurse, herself previously healthy. 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF MILK. 287 

to injure her foster-child by supplying it with an unnatural 
milk. Such a person, carefully chosen from a station 
in life implying moderate food, temperate habits, and 
copious exercise in the open air, becomes an inmate of a 
wealthy family, in which her food is augmented in quan- 
tity, and vastly enriched in quality ; while warm air, in- 
creased clothing, fermented liquors, diminished exercise, 
and the loss of that ventilation which exercise implies, all 
concur, not so much to enrich, as absolutely to deprave her 
milk : increasing the ^proportions of its proper solids; and 
doubtless, surcharging it much more disproportionately 
with extractive or excretory constituents, which ought- 
only to be present in very moderate quantity. Thus 
altered in quality and quantity, and unable to find that 
partial safety-valve which, in the higher classes, scrupulous 
personal cleanliness often affords, the milk of the wet- 
nurse "disagrees with" — in plain English, poisons — her 
unhappy charge to a degree which raises our opinion of 
the resisting powers of Nature, not to find its obvious 
effects more frequent and injurious. 

The physical arrangement of milk is closely related to 
the various alimentary preparations it furnishes. It con- 
sists of a thin opalescent bluish liquid, in which are 
mechanically suspended a vast number of so-called cor- 
puscles of variable (less than -j^o-oo^l 1 ^° ^"oVo^ i nc k i n 
diameter) size. The liquid contains a large proportion 
of the casein and albumen of the secretion ; in forms 
which possess such different capacities for precipitation 
by reagents, as to suggest that at least two varieties of 
casein are present. The corpuscles consist of globules 



288 ANIMAL FOOD. 

of the butter, enclosed and surrounded by a thin but 
structureless pellicle of a casein in some respects akin to 
flbrine. 

The cream which rises to the top of new milk on its 
standing is formed of these corpuscles, accumulated by 
their lightness into a layer, the depth of which tolerably 
measures the quantity of its buttery constituent. The 
agitation of this cream at a certain temperature, aided by 
the oxygen with which it is thus brought into contact, 
churns it into butter; as it is generally believed, by a 
process in which the dissolved casein of the milk inaugu- 
rates a partial conversion of its sugar into lactic add; 
which itself dissolves the pellicle of the corpuscles, and 
so permits the butter they contain to be thrown together 
into masses of variable size. 

Butter, the fatty constituent thus separated from the 
milk, not only appears to vary extremely according t«> 
the food and exercise of the animal secreting it, — being 
increased by the ingestion of much starchy matter, di- 
minished by exercise — but seems to differ materially, 
both in its total amount and its several ingredients, in 
different species; and to possess a composition which 
not only permits, but even implies, its speedy conversion 
into a variety of new fatty compounds at ordinary tem- 
peratures. The butter of Cow's milk, for example, 
stated by Bromeis to contain about 6*8 per cent, of 
margarine, with 30 of elaine, and 2 of a fatty matter 
specific to butter. The latter, closely related (if not 
identical with) the " butyrin w of Chevreul, seems to be an 
impure neutral fat; the acid of which is united, as butyric 






BUTTEK. 289 

acid, with the base of glycerine. In the butter of human 
milk, its amount is much smaller than in that of the Cow ; 
in which, according to the statements of many chemists, 
it often materially exceeds the above estimate of Bromeis. 
But the exact nature and admixture of the fatty consti- 
tuents of the milk probably varies even in different 
specimens. The marked flavour and odour imparted to 
ordinary butter by peculiarities of the Cow's food — the 
strong taste derived from turnips, and the delicate fragrance 
of fresh butter from Alpine pastures — conclusively show 
that various ingredients are thus transferred from the 
food to the milk. In like manner, butter not only easily 
becomes rancid from undue warmth and exposure, but the 
products of this decomposition vary according to the 
temperature, and the access of oxygen, by which it is 
accompanied. Such circumstances often add to the ori- 
ginal ingredients of the buttery mass a variety of fatty 
acids ; many of them highly volatile ; and distinguished 
by the names of caprylic, butyric, capronic, capric, vaccinic, 
and the like. 

How far the dietetic value of butter is connected with 
this complex fatty composition, and proneness to oxidation, 
can scarcely be definitely decided. But, whatever the 
theory of its value, it is impossible to doubt the fact ; and 
not easy to rate that value too highly. Thus much may 
at any rate be alleged in its favour ; that it is not only the 
most natural, but by far the best, form in which hydro- 
carbons can be introduced into the healthy human or- 
ganism. Attractive to the taste of most persons, and 
easily assimilated by children, as well as by adults whose 

u 



290 AXIMAL FOOD. 

delicate organs of digestion resent the introduction of fat 
in the form of the ordinary adipose tissue of animal food — 
it is probably, weight for weight, and taken in moderation, 
the most economical, because the least wasted, of all the 
constituents of our ordinary mixed diet. Of course, the 
quantity absolutely consumed must be distinguished from 
that merely taken into the digestive canal ; and will vary 
with the nature and amount of the other ingredients of 
the food, as well as with the rate at which nutrition (and 
especially combustion) proceeds in the body. But the 
large amount of this substance habitually taken as ghee by 
the Hindoos, and the huge ration of butter of the Alpine 
dairy-men and wood-cutters in the Tyrol — often little less 
than a pound daily — are a striking testimony, both of its 
harmlessness to the digestive organs, and (considering the 
simplicity of their food in other respects) its value to the 
system in general. Indeed, the diversity of climate and 
habits thus shown to be compatible with its copious use, 
suggest for it some direct relation to those two organs — 
the skin and the lungs — which presumably boar the chief 
stress of the Indian and the Alpine climates respectively. 
Cheese. — The substances known by this name cons 
chiefly of casein, which has been precipitated from the 
milk in company with a variable quantity of its buttery 
constituent. Their dietetic value is of course very high. 
But their digestibility varies greatly: according to the pro- 
portion of fatty matter and salts which they contain, the 
mechanical aggregation of their mass, and the degree of 
decomposition which they may have experienced sub- 
sequently to their manufacture. 






CHEESE. 291 

Thus as regards its admixture of butter, while the com- 
position of a particular variety of cheese is doubtless 
affected by that of the milk which yields it, the proportion 
of this ingredient is much more dependent on the process 
of cheesemaking. For in making some cheeses, as Stilton 
and Neufchatel, the milk used is enriched by the addition 
of cream, which thus enters largely into their composition. 
In others, as the Cheshire, Gloucester, and Emmenthaler, 
the milk is used pure. In others, the cheese is prepared 
from a milk which has been skimmed or deprived of its 
cream ; of which class the Grruyere, as an excellent cheese, 
is perhaps the least invidious illustration. 

The precipitation of casein to form cheese is generally 
effected by the addition of rennet, the mucous membrane 
of the true stomach or abornasum of the calf. The solu- 
tion of pepsin (compare p. 120) thus added precipitates 
casein by virtue of a specific property of this kind; and 
not from its acidity, or even from its supposed power of 
causing the sugar of milk to undergo a metamorphosis into 
lactic acid. For the pepsine may be added, almost in a 
state of neutrality to test paper, without losing its effect. 
And whatever influence of this latter kind may be gra- 
dually brought about, the rapid solidification of the casein 
of milk by an addition of as little as ^-^J-^th * of its 
weight of rennet, and the similar precipitation of dissolved 
albumen, together leave no doubt that the solidity assumed 

* Mitscherlich (Bericht der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 
1842, p. 147, et seq.) states this proportion of pepsine as sufficient. Ber- 
zelius found smooth the weight of the coagulated casein had been dissolved 
out of a piece of rennet during the process of precipitation. 

ks 2 



292 ANIMAL FOOD. 

by the casein of milk is a specific effect of the pepsine 
itself. In consonance with such an opinion we may notice 
that, in respect to the salts of ordinary cheese, the chief 
distinction hitherto established appears referrible to the 
way in which the casein has been precipitated from its 
solution in the milk. Where the process has been effected 
by the addition of rennet, the caseous deposit contains a 
large proportion — about 5 or 6 per cent. — of phosphate 
of lime. But where the precipitation has been produced 
by the lactic acid which is gradually developed in milk as 
the result of its own spontaneous decomposition, the de- 
posit contains scarcely one per cent, of this salt. In such a 
case, however, the smaller amount of phosphates appears 
to be partially compensated by the presence of some free 
phosphoric acid, 

Some of the characters of various kinds of cheese seem to 
depend upon details of composition, or of preparation, at pre- 
sent unknown. Among the latter, the amount of rennet used 
to coagulate the milk, and the temperature and mechanical 
pressure to which the curd is afterwards exposed, are doubt- 
less the most influential. In general terms, the free addition 
of rennet renders the cheese far more digestible, as well 
as nutritious ; not only from the*completeness with which 
it precipitates all * the varieties of casein present, but from 
its antiseptic (perhaps even from its digestive) qualities, 
and from the above composition of the salts in cheese 
thus made. The spongy structure sometimes met with 
in English cheese, and more uniformly found in the 
Gruyere, Parmesan, and Emmenthaler cheeses, suggests an 

* Compare pp. 2 $7, 288. 



CHAXGES IN CHEESE. 293 

interstitial evolution of gases, forming cavities which the 
pressure of the contracting casein subsequently fills with a 
rich extractive liquor. But it is probable that the earlier 
application of mechanical pressure would prevent these 
cavities from being formed, at the same time that it would 
render the cheese somewhat poorer as respects those 
fragrant and savoury substances which the liquor thus 
pressed out of it would contain. Hence, supposing these 
cells — thraenen and augen (tears and eyes) as the Germans 
sentimentally term them — really correspond to a smaller 
proportion of rennet, a more spontaneous precipitation, 
and a more pronounced decomposition of the cheese, the 
increased surface, and richer extractive, they imply are 
digestive advantages ; which are counterpoised by a greater 
poverty of salts and of casein, and a greater proneness to 
decomposition, than is possessed by their analogous English 
cheeses made from milk only. 

The changes which cheese undergoes by keeping are 
chiefly manifested by the formation of various volatile 
fatty acids, which generally communicate their characteristic 
odour to the whole mass. Such alterations are usually 
most marked in those varieties of cheese, in which but a 
small proportion of rennet has been used, and much fatty 
matter is present. Hence they seem at least partially at- 
tributable to a metamorphosis — probably an oxidation — 
of the buttery constituents themselves. In addition to 
this change, however, the casein also undergoes a somewhat 
similar fermentation ; which is accompanied by the pro- 
duction of oxides of casein, and of volatile fatty acids. Oc- 
casionally the process is carried so far, as to constitute a 

u 3 



294 AXIMAL FOOD. 

kind of putrefaction, in which part of the nitrogen origi- 
nally present is given off in the form of ammonia. The 
highly poisonous properties which decayed cheese sometimes 
possesses, and the repulsive odour which it often gives off, 
are illustrations of these statements. 

The value of cheese as an article of food may be to some 
extent inferred from the large amount of its proteincus con- 
stituent, which often forms more than 70 per cent, of its 
whole weight. This quantity of casein would correspond 
to about 11| per cent, of nitrogen : a quantity far beyond 
that contained in any other ordinary variety of azotized 
food. But just as this unprecedented chemical composition 
may suffice to indicate how largely such a proportion of 
the " histogenetic " principles would require to be di: 
with the "respiratory" or "combustible" substances, in 
order to constitute a "food"' in the true acceptation of 
term, so it partially explains the fact that cheese ifl i 
thing but easy of digestion. By many persons, even 
milk is only digested with difficulty: so that much of 
casein which is at once precipitated from it in the stomach 
by the gastric juice, and thus acquires all the mechanical 
advantages of a solid food in stimulating this organ, i 
be subsequently traced through the whole length of 
bowels, but little changed by the action of the 
juice. And the mechanical aggregation of many kinc 
cheese — their extreme hardness, dryness, and density — 
often enable them almost to defy digestion.* But minute 

* Blonifield in " The Fanner's Boy." thus alludes to a kind of cheese — 

" Which in the hog-trough rests in perfect spite, 

Too big to swallow, and too hard to bite I " 



VALUE OP CHEESE. 295 

division, cooking, or careful mastication, will obviate one of 
these objections. And the other is easily met by a proper 
admixture of vegetable food. With such precautions, cheese 
becomes a most valuable article of food; so that we need 
be little surprised to find the extreme value and importance 
assigned to this variety of azotized aliment amongst rural 
populations where meat is scarce and expensive. Indeed, 
the diet on which tradition states old Parr to have attained 
his remarkable age can hardly have been very unwholesome. 
And the natives of a country which, like ours, still boasts 
of large cheese-fairs in some of its country towns, can 
find little to wound their national pride in the quaint 
fancy of Joh. v. Mueller ; — that, where cheese is largely 
manufactured, there freedom flourishes.* 

* Frericlis(0p. Oit,). 



V 4 



296 



CHAP. VIII. 

VARIETIES OF FOOD. VEGETABLE FOOD. 

Vegetable Food. — Its Characters. — Its importance to "National Life. — Its 
Value in warm Climates. — Its Variations ; caused by Culture. 
Climate, Age. — Cereal and allied Grains ; their Value as referrible to 
their Growth, their Composition. — Proximate Analysis. — Variations in 
their Proteinous Constituent, Husk, Fat. Starch. Sugar, Salts. — Varia- 
tions in other Characters. — Process of Bread-making. — Physical and 
Chemical Changes. — Choice of Breads. — Leguminous Seeds. — Compo- 
sition. — Nutritive Value. — Potatoes. — Their Composition. — Their Nu- 
tritive Value. — Roots and Fruits. — Their Composition and Uses. — 
Shoots, Leaves, &c. — Their Composition and Nutritive Proper* 

The nutritive characters of vegetables generally have 
already (p. 251) been alluded to by way of contrast with 
those of animal food. A redundancy of the hydrate* 
carbon ; a deficiency of hydrocarbons and proteinous con- 
stituents ; and a more frequent (though more variable) 
deficiency of salts — these were the chief peculiarities 
found in the class of vegetable aliments as a whole. 

It is hardly necessary to add 3 that there are many and 
large exceptions to every one of these rules. The very 
moderate starchy ingredient of various fruits, and even 
seeds ; the oil of the olive or cocoa-nut : the large albu- 
minous element of most kinds of pulse : and even the 
A^aluable saline ingredients of various herbs used as food : 
— these examples may suffice to indicate how little the 



VEGETABLE FOOD ESSENTIAL. 297 

general characters above summed up, will apply to all 
vegetables in detail. 

The so-called " vegetarian " system can just as little be 
deduced from the economic, as from the practical, aspect 
of Nutrition. But the half-truth which it, like almost 
every other error, may be said to contain, is both in- 
teresting and suggestive. Eestricted to a carnivorous diet, 
Man could scarcely have fulfilled the divine command of 
replenishing the earth : or at any rate, only with so wide 
a disparity between his numbers and those of the brute 
creation, as would have deprived this mandate of most of 
its significance. It is only the few and scattered inhabi- 
tants of a primeval forest, or of an Arctic waste, which has 
ever been known to live exclusively, or even chiefly, on 
flesh. The dawn of agriculture is co-eval with the be- 
ginning of civilization : the neglect of it, if persistent, 
first restricts the numbers, and finally seals the doom, of 
any nation. Doubtless, many a race has thus silently dis- 
appeared from off the face of the earth ; to leave, it may 
be, no traces save those found in the Folk-lore of Dwarfs 
and Griants. And though, in legendary story, the might 
of invaders is the alleged cause of such a decay and 
extinction, it may be fairly questioned — as indeed it 
might be left to our own times to answer — whether the 
conquerors have really ousted the aborigines by force of 
arms, or by that commissariat, which, other things being 
equal, would decide any campaign ; and which, in a struggle 
protracted through many years, must swell the numbers, as 
well as strengthen the individual forces, of those who adopt 
it. The exclusively carnivorous habits of the cattle- 



298 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

slaying Ghianches are clearly the offspring of rare and 
temporary circumstances ; so unusual, and so temporary, as 
to form no real exception to this rule. And while the 
Arab and the Tartar nations seem to have added more 
agriculture to their pastoral pursuits than has usually 
been supposed — the attention of history having naturally 
been fastened on their peculiarities, rather than on their 
resemblances to other nations — their predatory habits 
and repeated migrations have essentially confirmed this 
rule; and their numbers, disproportionately small when 
contrasted with those of nations whose ancestors mingled 
with their own on the plain of Shinar, have only attained 
the slender proportion they now possess, by the fruits of 
perpetual pillage on the one hand, or by something like a 
systematic adoption of the agricultural customs of the 
nations whom they have displaced, on the other. 

The pasture of flocks is indeed but a partial substitute 
for the tillage of the ground, suited only to an early 
epoch of civilization, and a sparse population. The milk 
and flesh thus yielded as the sole harvest of a large tract 
of land are themselves an insufficient nourishment, with- 
out the addition of some vegetable food. And an exclu- 
sively flesh diet seems even more rare and unwholesome, 
in all save Arctic regions. In warm climates, for example, 
its fat appears to be scarcely digested ; and its protein is 
in decided excess. And while its superfluous flit tends to 
surcharge the liver and the lacteals, as well as to derange 
the alimentary canal, its albuminous compounds often 
appear to bring about a feverish state of the system at 
large. Perpetual exercise in the open air, and compara- 



ITS SUPERFLUITY HARMLESS. 299 

tive moderation in eating, seem to be the only means of 
carrying on healthy Nutrition with this unsuitable quality 
of food. It may be further conjectured, that there is a 
wide difference between the digestive risks which attach 
to those superfluities of protein, or of starch, respectively, 
which are ordinarily associated with the use of a pre- 
dominantly animal or vegetable food. The excessive inges- 
tion of protein in a warm climate seems to be sometimes 
injurious, by the unchecked continuance or progress of that 
decomposition, which the gastric juice in larger quantity 
would specifically arrest. Compared with this, an excess 
of any of the ordinary hydrates of carbon seems of little 
importance. Indeed it may be surmised that, to a healthy 
digestion, any moderate surplus of starch is almost in- 
different, if not absolutely useful by the mechanical 
stimulus it affords. At least so much of this substance 
may always be found unchanged in the faeces derived from 
even a mixed diet, that it would seem that much of the 
starch which the digestive juices fail to render soluble, and 
to absorb in the form of sugar, escapes all metamorphosis 
whatever. But on the other hand, many varieties of 
dyspepsia indicate that it is so far one office of the healthy 
digestive juices to restrict the changes of the warm and 
moist starch contained in the alimentary canal, as that 
their insufficient quantity, or depraved quality, permits a 
large formation of lactic acid, ending in the evolution and 
expulsion of various gases. (Comp. pp. 239, 240.) 

More variable than the tissues of the animal body, the 
innumerable structures included under the term " vegetable 
food " differ materially from each other in almost every cir- 



SOO VEGETABLE FOOD. 

cumstance and quality. Occasionally yielded to the wants 
of Man in quantities and qualities such as enable him 
to feed, with scarcely any more toil or trouble than does 
a frugivorous monkey of Western Africa, they generally 
illustrate the primeval curse by demanding so careful a cul- 
ture, that it is only "in the sweat of his brow " he can "eat 
bread." And every detail of this artificial process of their 
cultivation materially affects the value of the food they 
form. Nor are the natural circumstances of the vegetable 
itself less influential. The ingredients of the soil, from 
which the plant is in great part nourished, greatly in- 
fluence its composition ; so much so, that any serious 
deficiency of these organic and inorganic materials, how- 
ever gradually brought about, prevents the growth of the 
embryo plant, or permits its premature decay and destruc- 
tion at some further stage of its life. Climate, again, is 
no less influential : dictating, as is well known, the very 
life of many plants ; and materially influencing the nutri- 
tious qualities of those whose greater hardihood survives a 
wider range of latitude or level. And a whole series of 
changes of composition are well known to occur in the 
history of most esculent vegetables. The young plant, or 
the young shoots of a plant, are not only far more easily 
digested than are the harder and less soluble textures of 
the older vegetable organism, but are often much richer in 
nutritive matter. The approach of fruits towards their 
maturity determines a converse change in two parts of 
their structure : the pulp undergoing a series of physical 
and chemical changes, which have the result of rendering 
it far more nutritious; while at the same time the core 



CEREAL GRAINS. 301 

or stone within becomes harder and less nutritious. In 
short, Man's observation, choice, and artificial treatment, 
together exercise an almost unlimited sway over this kind 
of food ; and, through this, materially influence his own 
mental and moral destiny. The very same selection of 
soil, climate, treatment, which increase the per-centage of 
protein in a given weight of the grain grown under their 
influence, will necessarily extend their influence, in some 
degree, to every person and animal whose food is formed 
by the resulting crop. 

Com. — The seeds of the Cerealia are not only the most 
important of all the varieties of vegetable food, but may 
even be ranked above all other alimentary substances, 
animal as well as vegetable. Such an estimate of their 
value may indeed be deduced from the history of Mankind 
in all ages : and is well expressed by that phrase " the 
staff of life," which is applied to one of their chief products 
when prepared as food. 

The explanation of this remarkable fact may no doubt 
be partially found in circumstances which are compara- 
tively independent of the characters ascribed to these 
seeds by modern chemistry. Hardy and tractable, the 
various plants which yield them have been carried by 
Man over the whole earth, with the result of his finding no 
latitude or climate in which one or other of them will not 
grow readily : up to the very border of the Arctic circle ; 
or to a level, in Europe of 5000, in Asia of 7000 or 8000 
feet, above the sea. Evading the extreme rigour of the 
seasons by their brief, but variable periods of growth; 



302 VEGETABLE FOOD, 

finding nutriment in most soils ; capable of largely varying 
some of their inorganic salts with little detriment to their 
vigour or usefulness ; and exhausting the soil less quickly 
than many other plants ; the numerous members of the 
cereal class constitute the chief element in the dietary of 
civilization :— a food, the habitual use of which is not only 
compatible with the highest development of social life, but 
almost demands, for its successful production, a state of 
comparative well-being, both political and general. 

But a far better explanation of this great dietetic value 
of the Cereal grains is to be found in their composition ; 
which, imperfectly as we are still acquainted with some of 
its details, gives a sufficient clue to their general and 
special characters as articles of food. In all these seeds, 
the nutriment stored up for the embryo which they con- 
tain, exhibits a considerable resemblance to milk ; both in 
the nature and the proportion of those various alimentary 
principles of which it is composed. It is true that the 
substance of the grain contains little fat ; while conversely, 
it includes a large insoluble ingredient of husk and cel- 
lulose, absent from the milk. But, allowing for these 
peculiarities, and for an excess of starch which may be 
looked upon as in some degree compensating the above 
want of fatty matter (compare p. 62), the alimentary 
composition of the two is so far akin, that we may fairly 
estimate a pound of good bread, with two pounds of a 
tolerably pure spring water, as equivalent, for the nutritive 
purposes of a healthy adult, to about two or three pints 
of milk. 



COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS GRAIXS. 



303 



The proximate analysis of the various grains chiefly made 
use of in Europe may be summed up * as follows : — 





100 parts dried at 212° Fahr. 


Protein, Glutin 




Cellulose, Gum. 


Ash. 


Moisture 


Wheat ; average of 


+ Albumin. 


oLcii cn • 


Sugar, Husk s 


per cent. 












seven kinds . 


16-9 


55-3 


22-7 


1-8 


14-2 


Rye ; average of four 












kinds . 


16-03 


51-97 


27-74 


1-47 


14-06 


Barley ; average of 












three kinds . 


15*89 


40-17 


43-66 


3-87 


14-43 


Oats ; average of two 












kinds . 


15-08 


37-41 


45-67 


3-67 


11-2 


Maize ; average of 






f 12 " 67 1 






two kinds 


14-16 


72-04 


< of which V 
L 3— 4 fat J 


1-39 


14-16 


Rice 


7'4 


86-21 


539 


•36 


15-14 


Buckwheat ; average 












of three 


9-17 


54-76 


34-24 


1-09 


15-12 



In addition to these grains, with which have been in- 
cluded, for the sake of convenience, some foreign to the 
Cereal group, there are many other Graminceous seeds 
largely made use of as food in various parts of the globe ; 
especially the varieties of Millet, (Panicum,) which are 
largely cultivated in southern Europe, and Asia; those of 
the genus Sorghum, in India and Africa ; of the Poa in 
Abyssinia, &c, &c. The circumstances which dictate the 
preference of some of these kinds of grain often seem 
to be quite as much related to the poverty, or ignorance 
of agriculture, of the nation using them, as to their indi- 

* Chiefly from Horsford and Krocker's analyses, (Annalen der Chemie 
ti. Pharmacie, Bd, 58, s. 166, 212) ; in which the protein, estimated from 
the nitrogen present, is probably somewhat overrated. 



304 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

genous character, or their suitability to the climate and soil. 
As regards the more valuable and widely-used grains, 
though most of them seem to have been carried with the 
diffusion of the human race from the neighbourhood of 
Asia Minor, they show considerable contrasts in their range 
of climate. Maize, for example, demands more heat for its 
complete ripening than can generally be obtained north of 
a latitude of 40° or 45°. Eice, which within the tropics 
ranges to a level of 5000 or 6000 feet above the sea, re- 
quires not only heat, but copious moisture : such as is 
usually supplied by irrigation of the lowland plains and 
plateaus, in which it is best cultivated. Wheat perhaps 
shows the widest range of all; though Eye, Barley, and 
Oats, are all said somewhat to surpass it in endurance of 
cold, as well as in facility of ripening during the brief sum- 
mer of high latitudes and levels. With these circumstances 
of their culture are doubtless connected many of the points 
suggested by a contrast of their composition. 

In all the above grains, the proteinous constituent forms 
a considerable proportion of their weight. And on the 
whole, the steady diminution of this ingredient seen in 
the above table — in which the 17 per cent, of protein, 
contained in wheat (often rising to 20, or even 24 in the 
richer and better varieties) gradually drops to much less 
than half this proportion in Buck-wheat and Eice — evi- 
dently corresponds with the relative nutritional value which 
is usually assigned to them. In respect to the varieties 
of this proteinous ingredient present, we can scarcely trace 
any analogous difference. For though we rind substances 
closely resembling all three of its chief modifications in 



INFLUENCE OF COMPOSITION. 305 

the animal kingdom — for example, in Wheat, a large 
quantity of gluten and vegetable fibrin, analogous to casein 
and fibrin respectively, and a small quantity of vegetable 
albumen — still their relative proportions in the different 
Cereal grains are at present far from being accurately 
made out. 

We should be wrong, however, to attach too exclusive 
or predominant a value to any scanty variation of protein, 
especially in that absolute form in which alone such a varia- 
tion is indicated by the above table. The contrast in the 
proportion of insoluble cellulose and husk is scarcely less 
important ; and is well illustrated by that high per centage 
of this ingredient which is notified in the analysis of Barley 
and Oats, and which concurs with what is, empirically, a well- 
known inferiority of these seeds to those of Wheat as food. 
It is true that, in the rich and abundant food of the affluent, 
the insoluble elements of the food are sometimes unwit- 
tingly reduced below their due amount ; so that the func- 
tion of digestion in some degree languishes for want of the 
proper mechanical stimulation of the alimentary canal by 
such substances. But excess, either in quantity or quality, 
has never been the dietetic error of the mass of any nation. 
And hence the total solubility of a given grain — in other 
words, the total quantity of its assimilable parts, compared 
with that of its husk — would, other things being equal, 
generally dictate its preference as a staple article of food. 
In like manner, we may probably find the alimentary ratio 
of the starch, less in its absolute per centage in the dry 
grain, than in its proportion to the protein. So that, for 
example, in contrasting Wheat and Eice in this respect, we 



306 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



may look upon the starch of the latter as being from three 
to four times more abundant than that of the former 
(11*65 against 3-27). Fatty matter, sugar, and even salt, 
doubtless require somewhat the same estimate. The four 
per cent, of fat found in Maize, is thus a far more im- 
portant detail of its composition, than its mere numerical 
amount might imply. And the variation in the above 
Table of the salts, which range from a multiple of one in 
Eice, to ten in Barley, may suggest the same remark. 
The salts of these grains (see Table*) deserve separate 



Wheat ; average 
of 4 analyses . 

Kye ; average of 
2 analyses . . 

Barley ; average 
of 3 analyses . 

Oats 

Maize .... 
Buckwheat . . 


Ash containing per 100 parts. 


Potash. 


Soda. 


Lime. 


Magnesia. 


Iron(oxide). 


Silica. 


Phosphoric Sulphuric 
acid. acid. 


22 01 

MUo 31) 

21G6 
(11 to 32) 

12-86 
12 9 


11 
(A to 28) 

11-61 
(4 to 19) 

7-92 


272 

4 95 

2 42 
3-7 

13 

607 


10-76 
10-22 

8-52 
77 

17- 

1039 


•9 
1-35 

17 
1-3 

1-05 


•99 
1-C6 

2625 
53-3 

•8 

•69 


15-27 
4$ 92 

39*64 

14-9 

50-1 
50- 15 


•07 
•34 

•14 
I- 

2 17 


30-8 
875 1 20*13 



allusion ; not only from their contrast in the several kinds 
of grain, but even in those varieties and specimens of 
the same grain hitherto analyzed. When two varieties 
of Wheat show, the one potash, the other soda, to be 
the alkaline base almost exclusively present, we at once 
recognise a contrast which, whatever its influence on those 
who use either grain as food, admits an easy explanation as 



* From various analyses by Bichon, Fresenius. Letellier, Erdmann, "Will, 
Boussingault, and Koeehlin, in Moleschott's and Freriehs' works, already 
cited. 



INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 307 

regards its source ; and indicates that under circumstances 
otherwise favourable, the preponderance of either base in 
the soil is almost indifferent to the plant. But in the vast 
amount of phosphates contained in all the class of grains, 
as contrasted with the very moderate quantity of the same 
salts in many other vegetable substances, we may recognise 
one main element of the great value of this kind of 
vegetable food in supplying these large inorganic consti- 
tuents of the blood, the muscular substance, the secretions, 
and the skeleton. And the coincidence of a large excess 
of silica, in the ash of Rye and Barley, with a marked 
diminution of the phosphates, suggests another reason for 
that lower nutritive value which experience has assigned to 
these hardy (and otherwise valuable) grains. 

It is probable that other and more mechanical details 
are often concerned in the preference of certain Cereals ; 
and are, indeed, related to the above composition. The 
facility with which a particular kind of grain is stripped 
of its husk ; as well as the arrangement of this ingredient ; 
the ease with which it ferments ; the expansion it under- 
goes in doing so ; the flavour it has, or acquires ; the de- 
gree in which it will keep when prepared as bread ; — all of 
these characters, as well as those already mentioned re- 
lating to its climate and soil, are doubtless of influence 
in the selection of this or that grain. Indeed, most, if not 
all of them concur in that preference for Wheat, which has 
for ages been established among the more civilized nations 
of Europe. Eye-bread, for example, has a crumbly cha- 
racter, which gives it a digestibility — though scarcely a 
surface — almost approaching to that which renders spongy 

x 2 



308 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

Wheaten-bread so valuable in domestic economy. It 
keeps fresh, too, considerably longer. But almost all the 
fermented preparations of the other Cerealia seem far 
behind Wheat in both these respects ; so that, for example, 
one cannot doubt the soundness of the American rule 
of eating ripe Maize almost exclusively in the form of ex- 
temporised cakes ; since, as bread, it often sours in a single 
day of moderate temperature. 

The rationale of bread-making may be briefly sketched 
as follows : — 

The ordinary preparation of flour from these different 
kinds of grain is such as to introduce some slight chancres 
of composition. For the processes of grinding and 
sifting strip away the outer husk of the grain ; and thus 
have the disadvantage of removing a part of it, which 
contains a larger proportion of protein than does its 
more starchy interior. The subsequent process of fer- 
mentation and baking converts part of the starch into 
sugar and alcohol, with the formation of carbonic acid 
gas. The slow extrication of this elastic fluid gives the 
bread a porous or spongy character ; which has the ad- 
vantage of greatly increasing the effective surface that is 
subsequently exposed to the action of the digestive fluids. 
Part of the gluten of the flour is also lost in the process. 
But the whole amount of both gluten and starch which 
disappears is not very considerable: probably not more 
than 5 per cent. This trifling loss, and the addition of 
about 30 per cent, of water, constitute almost the only 
noticeable differences between the composition of pure 
Wheaten-bread, and that of the flour from which it is 



BREAD-MAKIXG. 309 

made. Their effect is, to exchange the composition already 
mentioned in speaking of Wheat, for about 16 per cent. 
of protein, and 35 to 40 of starch, in bread of a moderate 
dryness. But the advantages afforded by the spongy 
texture, and the intimate admixture of water, which are 
brought about in the process of making bread, are still 
further increased by a mechanical change produced in the 
starch-granules themselves. For, under the influence of 
the moisture to which they are exposed, most of these 
swell up and burst; and thus place their contents in a 
state much more accessible to the changes which are sub 
sequently induced in them by the salivary and pancreatic 
secretions. 

In the preparation of ordinary bread, the carbonic acid 
extricated from the fermenting dough is the means of 
giving it a spongy character ; the evolution and expansion 
of this gas being furthered by the heat of baking. But in 
various other kinds of bread, a similar sponginess is brought 
about by the same gas being set free from a carbonate of an 
alkali, — usually soda or ammonia, — either by the addition 
of an acid, or by the acid developed from some sugary 
constituent — as a syrup — also added to the dough. Of 
such unfermented breads, that formed by the effervescence 
of hydrochloric acid and carbonate of soda seems prefer- 
able ; from its only adding to the resulting food a salt, — 
the chloride of sodium, — which necessity or habit otherwise 
requires to be mixed with the dough. But Dr. Dauglish 
has recently patented an ingenious process, which seems 
far superior to all these methods. It consists in forcing 
into the dough a quantity of free carbonic acid under a 

z3 



310 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

heavy pressure. Since the bread thus made loses none 
of its starch, dextrin, or sugar, as in ordinary fermentation ; 
and also avoids an admixture of acids and alkalis re- 
quiring more nicety of adjustment than can perhaps be 
expected in any class of workmen unused to chemical 
operations, it promises the advantages of a strictly "pure" 
bread ; made with a saving of alimentary materials such 
as ought to render it cheap to the public, as well as re- 
munerative to the inventor. It further appears to keep 
somewhat better : a circumstance which, if confirmed by 
observation, will scarcely be a smaller recommendation; 
and will probably find its explanation in the absence of 
that fermentative process which, in ordinary bread, con- 
tinues even after the process of baking is finished. The 
peculiar sponginess of wh eaten bread is ascribed, with 
good show of reason, to its large quantity of tenacious 
gluten retaining the bubbles of carbonic acid as they are 
evolved in its interior. And in various breads made of 
starchier meal, — Eice, Arrow-root, &c, — a similar tenacity 
is sometimes conferred by the addition of albuminous sub- 
stances, such as eggs or milk, which enable the dough to 
rise like that of ordinary bread. 

The important question, as to what is the best bread, is 
one which many persons would doubtless decide for them- 
selves ; with answers the diversity of which would recall the 
adage, " qaot homines, tot seiitentioj" Whether a bread 
artificially whitened and adulterated — drugged with alum, 
lowered by potato starch, damaged by ground-bones, or 
what not — is really the best, we should perhaps be told to 
leave for experience to decide : just as some would assert 



FAULTS OF WHITE BREAD. 311 

that it is not for immutable morality, but for fluctuating 
custom, checked by competition, to determine whether it 
is right or wrong for any particular retail trade secretly to 
adopt new standards of weight, or new interpretations of 
such complex words as " bread," " milk," " coffee," &c. 

But inasmuch as bread is the staple of food for a large 
proportion of that labouring class which forms the very 
thews and sinews of society, or the broad basis of the whole 
social edifice, its proper appraisement deserves to be under- 
stood. It is usually asserted that modern experience has 
taught the labourer the economy of white bread. If so, 
then science and experience might for once be almost 
excused joining issue. That, weight for weight, pure 
white bread would yield to a labouring man a trifle more 
starch, perhaps even more sugar, is possible enough. But, 
as already mentioned, the chemist and the microscopist 
concur in assuring us that those outer layers of the grain 
thus rejected from the bread-making process contain much 
more of the proteinous ingredient than do the inner or 
nuclear portions. Physiology, too, finds this very de- 
ficiency to be one which the habits of our labouring classes 
no way compensate ; so little indeed that (as Dr. Carpenter 
. has well suggested) the present epoch may almost be dis- 
tinguished, dietetically, as one which favours a rheumatic 
diathesis in the masses of our population by an over-starchy 
and insufficiently proteinous food. And, as a Hospital 
physician, I would add to this statement, that the im- 
mediate effects of these dietetic faults, in the shape of 
special forms of dyspepsia, can be even more easily sub- 
stantiated than any such gradual and ultimate change 

x 4 



312 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

of general diathesis. Economically, again, it may be 
doubted whether the substances removed from corn in 
the shape of bran, pollard, &c, find a sale at prices 
equalling those at which the principles of Physiology, and 
the experience of most countries in Europe but our own, 
would agree in appraising them for human food; prices 
which ought to be scarcely less than those of that poorer 
(though whiter) flour which their subtraction has left. To 
the teachings of real experience on a point of this kind 
we ought undoubtedly to defer. But such experience, it 
may be presumed, should sum up the evidence on both 
sides of the question ; and, at any rate, ought not to ignore 
facts arrived at by Science in its zeal to record vague but 
popular impressions. And, if only "lihevare animam 
rneam" by the utterance of convictions formed in such 
scenes of suffering among the working classes as it is 
equally impossible to depict or to forget, — suffering often 
traceable to errors of diet, as its chief, or even sole, cause, 
— I must express a deliberate opinion that bread, " the 
staff of life," less deserves this title in England than in 
many other countries of Europe. The white bread of the 
huckster's shop is fast ousting the brown bread which 
the cottager formerly baked at home. Impoverished : 
adulterated ; injurious by its very monotony ; and certainly 
not yet supplemented (as it ought to be to render this de- 
terioration unimportant) by a sufficient allowance of meat ; 
— the bread to which the present generation of English 
artisans and labourers look for the munition of life is far 
inferior to that formerly prevalent in this country, as well 
as to that still common among the peasantry of France 



THE CHEAPEST BEEAD. 313 

and Grermany. If dietetic considerations have any value ; 
if this subject of food be not the one subject on which 
observation and reflection disqualify for all deliberate 
opinion; the bread ordinarily in use in our country is a 
grievous national error ; which, sooner or later, may 
inflict on our national strength injuries even greater than 
any which are now attributable to it. A good, pure, 
brownish bread of simple wheat-meal, with even an ad- 
mixture of a fourth or a fifth of rye, would, for equal 
money value, give the labouring population a food in- 
comparably more abundant and nutritious than that which 
they now make use of as fine white bread. And in no way 
could the dyspeptic affluent set their poorer neighbours 
a better dietetic example than by adopting, were it at some 
little pains, a bread which might sometimes cure their 
own ailments by its mechanical quality ; as well as prevent 
disease and deformity among the lower classes by its nu- 
tritive value. 

The unfermented preparations of the various flours in 
the shape of biscuits, cakes, damper, &c, deserve no 
special notice. The closeness of their physical texture of 
course opposes their rapid and complete digestion. On the 
other hand, this very circumstance, and the smaller amount 
of watery moisture they contain, renders them much less 
susceptible of decay. The intensity and duration of the 
heat by which they are baked affects, both their moisture, 
and the condition of their starchy ingredients. 

From what has already been said, it is evident that 
many of the above grains would themselves, — suppo- 
sing the obstacles offered by their structure removed by 



314 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

proper cookery — form a more economical and better 
food than most of the ordinary preparations of their meal. 
In the case of Kice, this is well known; the cleaned 
seeds, only prepared by soaking and boiling, forming the 
staple food of a large section of the human race. The 
other grains, however, seem yearly to be declining in 
repute as food of this kind. Hominy, furmety, groats, 
pearl-barley, are, indeed, still employed as a means of 
varying the diet of affluence. But, with the exception of 
the first, still valued aright by our American kinsmen, 
their more important office of forming an occasional or 
frequent substitute for bread in the meals of the labourer, 
is daily falling into greater desuetude. 

The various leguminous seeds constitute what is, both 
chemically and dietetically, a distinct group of vegetable 
foods. The term "pulse" (quasi pulled) formerly applied 
to them is now replaced by that of the above botanical 
genus, which connotes the same peculiarity of their har- 
vesting (legiint, legumen, gathering, gatherer) ; itself, in the 
case of some of them, now rendered obsolete by improved 
agriculture. 

If Cereal grains may be compared to milk, these seeds 
may be likened to cheese. For they contain a quantity of 
the protein-compounds which may be estimated as form- 
ing, on an average, nearly 30 per cent, of their weight : 
or half as much again as that present in the Cercalia. The 
quantity of their starchy constituent is, however, much 
less : being barely 40 per cent. They contain a some- 
what larger quantity of gum. They have also a larger 
(3i ) P er centage of saline ash ; the several ingredients 



LEGUMES. 315 

of which, though almost identical with those of the 
Cerealia, approach each other much more nearly in 
quantity. From the few analyses hitherto made, it would 
appear that the quantity of alkaline bases is very 
large ; but that potash predominates over soda, and lime 
nearly equals magnesia. And though the phosphoric is 
still the predominant acid (about -f-ths of the 40 per 
cent, which the inorganic acids form of the whole ash), 
sulphuric and hydrochloric acids are also combined with 
the above bases : — the latter chiefly with soda. Their 
watery moisture may be estimated at about 15 per cent., 
being that loss of weight which they undergo by a thorough 
drying. 

The value of these vegetables as food w 7 ill of course 
depend on the preparation to which they have been sub- 
jected before being eaten. When ripe and dried, their 
small proportion of water, and their great density, as well 
as the little surface they expose, together render them 
almost impregnable to the attacks of the various digestive 
agents. And even after tolerable mastication, their larger 
fragments often pass with little change throughout the 
whole length of the human intestinal canal. 

But after careful boiling — which bursts their starch 
granules ; dissolves their gum ; and swells, softens, or ul- 
timately breaks up, their various insoluble tissues — they 
assume the proper digestive rank suggested for them by 
their composition. So prepared for eating, their large 
proteinous constituent renders them a most efficacious 
azotized food. The modified form in which it is present 
is, perhaps, not without some further import. The greater 



316 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

part of it is a substance which Braconnot has termed 
Legnmin; and which, whatever its exact relation to glutin, 
may be regarded as having a solubility such as renders it 
analogous to ordinary casein. Adding to these consider- 
ations their large quantity of starch ; and their compara- 
tively uniform admixture of the very salts (save chloride 
of sodium) most important to Nutrition ; it becomes evi- 
dent that they have a completeness for dietetic purposes 
which even wheat can hardly be said to possess ; and which 
warrants the supposition that, if suitably prepared, some 
of these legumes might form a food sufficient for the 
maintenance of health. 

Experience abundantly confirms this vegetarian view ; 
and suggests a doubt, whether the Bible narrative which 
records the vigorous health of the Hebrew captives * under 
the use of this food, was intended to imply any miraculous 
interference with the laws of Nature. All the world over, 
the use of these leguminous seeds has in general been 
adopted as widely as climate, soil, and the art of agriculture 
would together allow. The Pea, the Bean, the Lentil, in 
all their natural and artificial varieties, have spread wher- 
ever civilization has extended ; and seem to be largely 
made use of in many parts of Asia and Africa, otherwise 
little addicted to agriculture, or to a careful choice of food. 

Here again, however, England seems to be receding, 
rather than advancing in knowledge. Whether this re- 
gress must be ascribed to the increasing division of labour ; 
or to the subtraction of women from home life to factory 
and field work; or to the aggregation of population in 

* Daniel, chap. i. y. 12. 



POTATOES. 317 

towns ; or to the gradual conversion of agriculture into a 
trade governed by demands from without, rather than a 
production of food in consonance with the instincts of the 
healthiest and most natural groups of the community — the 
cottier, and the small farmer — it is beyond the province 
of Physiology to inquire. But that the use of Legu- 
minous seeds as food, has greatly decreased even in the 
last thirty years, no one intimately acquainted with the 
habits of our working classes can affect to doubt. Pease 
porridge, pease-pudding, and a variety of other dishes of 
this kind, formerly so commonly eaten as to be hawked 
about the streets of most large towns, are in many places 
now almost unknown ; or linger only at the tables of the 
affluent to add, in the form of pease-soup, precisely that 
ingredient of diet which they are otherwise pretty sure to 
take in excess. 

Eeflections like these make it little worth while to search 
out the details of various other articles of food, such as 
Acorns, Nuts, Chestnuts, and the like; which, in this 
country, nobody eats as a staple of food. Their pro- 
teinous ingredient is such that they might be made both 
wholesome and palatable by careful cooking. Dietetically, 
they would then rank between Pulse and the Potato. In 
Nuts, there is also much fatty matter. 

The Potato, the starchy tuber of a plant belonging to 
the poisonous genus of the Solanece, is an article of vege- 
table food, which, in composition and properties, offers a 
remarkable contrast to the preceding group. 

The anatomy of the tuber shows it to consist of an ex- 
ternal epidermoid membrane, enclosing a very moist but 



318 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

solid mass ; which is distinguishable under the microscope 
as a series of largish cells, polyhedral from close packing, 
and enclosing a copious acid juice of a limpid consistence, 
with a number of fine starch granules. This acidity is 
due to malic acid ; as well as to a variable, but smaller, 
quantity of free phosphoric acid. 

The composition of the Potato-tuber may be summed 
up, from the numerous (nearly 150) and careful analyses of 
Koerte, Siemens, Horsford and Krocker, Einhof, Lam- 
padius, Michaelis, and others, as 75 per cent, of water, 
with 25 of dry solids. Of the latter, about \5\ parts are 
starch, and 1^ soluble albumen, with which is united a 
small (less than \ per cent.) quantity of a secondary azotized 
compound termed asparagin. About 7 per cent, of cel- 
lulose (doubtless by no means free from starch), and 1 
per cent, of ash, complete the whole 100 parts: and form 
an estimate, chiefly defective in the fact of its not esti- 
mating the acids just alluded to, which often seem to attain 
a proportion of 3 or 4 per cent. 

The salts of the Potato are remarkable in many re- 
spects. The fixed constituents found in its ash have been 
analysed by A. Vogel, Boussingault, and Way ; whose re- 
sults, however, scarcely agree with themselves, or with the 
organic ingredients already noted. Thus A. Vogel found 
| of the total ash to consist of carbonates ; of which by 
far the larger proportion (55 per cent.) was composed of 
the carbonates of soda and potash, in nearly equal pro- 
portions (34 of soda to 21 of potash). Doubtless much 
of these carbonates had been united with organic acids 
in the fresh tuber. Boussingault and Way, however, 



POLITICAL INFLUENCES OP THE POTATO. 319 

agree in representing the soda as a mere trace ; and the 
potash alone as about 54 per cent, of the ash. The phos- 
phoric and sulphuric acids — about 12 and 7 per cent, of 
the ash respectively — seem to be chiefly combined with the 
latter alkali ; though a certain quantity of magnesia (6 to 
14 per cent.) and a much smaller (about J) proportion of 
lime, have been found as bases. Finally, chlorides seem 
also to exist in very different proportions in different 
specimens : being almost absent ; or present chiefly as 
chloride of potassium ; or, lastly, being represented by free 
hydrochloric acid, which is probably produced, by displace- 
ment from some chloride, during the lactic fermentation 
of part of the starch of the tuber. 

Perhaps there is no article of food which more strongly 
claims the attention of the educated public, than does the 
Potato. Certainly there is none which better illustrates 
the intimate causal relation between the food and the 
habits, the physical and the moral state, of nations. In- 
troduced into Europe from America, by Hawkins, 250 
years ago, it is only during the last 100 years that its 
cultivation has assumed such enormous dimensions, as 
to subvert the dietetic habits of whole nations, and to 
accomplish a silent revolution, from which only the last 
few years have promised any efficient reaction. Through- 
out many parts of Europe, the poorer classes have now, 
for years past, been relying for their nutrition chiefly on 
the Potato. And though the sturdy English sagacity of 
Cobbett long ago pointed out the danger of this procedure, 
as well as the insufficiency of this vegetable to replace those 
more nourishing articles of food, which, in the shape of 



320 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

corn, &c, had been vouched by the experience of thou- 
sands of years ; though, indeed, both here and abroad, his 
presagings could be traced in course of fulfilment ; it was 
not until the terrible climax of the Irish famine, that the 
British nation became aroused to the recognition of those 
more casual, but not less dangerous, effects which spring 
from trusting to the Potato as a staple of food. 

The immediate advantages of its cultivation were ob- 
vious and undeniable. With little toil or trouble, the 
Potato extracted from the ground an amount of nourish- 
ment far surpassing that which could be obtained by the 
growth of wheat or any other grain. Frerichs estimates 
that the same surface of land would yield in Potatoes 
twice as much protein, and four times as much starch and 
mineral ingredients, as if sown with Wheat. Hence the 
cultivation of the Potato over large tracts of country first 
gave a cheap and plentiful food ; and then permitted an 
increase of population, up to the full limits of that ex- 
tended capacity of nourishment thus acquired by a given 
space. This was especially the case wherever the tenure 
of land implied, either its subdivision among a number of 
small proprietors, or (worse still) its subletting through 
various agents from the landlord the cottier tenant at a 
rack-rent. A simple process of digging, planting, waiting, 
and eating, replaced the perpetual foresight and labour of 
legitimate husbandry. And its natural results gradually 
attained their climax in Ireland ; where might be seen a 
population, distinguished, abroad, for undaunted industry 
and self-denial ; but, at home, bereft of the best occupation 
of life, and the strongest incentives to exertion ; and living 



FAULTS OF THE POTATO. 321 

in numbers unduly multiplied, on a plant not only pre- 
carious, but (as we can now see after the event) sure to be 
ultimately weakened or destroyed by the exhaustion of 
some of its ingredients from a continually impoverished 
soil. 

The above sketch of the composition of this vegetable 
sufficiently entitles the physiologist to range himself with 
the political economist, in determined opposition to the 
use of this vegetable by any population as their principal 
article of food. We may dismiss from further notice all 
consideration of that social and moral degradation which, 
ever since its introduction, have been steadily following 
such an undue use of the Potato as the staple aliment in 
various parts of Europe. We may even set aside those 
fearful outbreaks of pestilence in Ireland which, though 
produced by the quantitative failure of one crop, must 
surely have been in some degree fostered by a peculiar 
state of the constitution — by a mental and physical de- 
generation — itself probably founded, in part, on the qua- 
litative deficiencies of the previous food. Our objections 
to the Potato find a better excuse in such a composition as 
the above. Eough as is the above estimate, it neverthe- 
less claims to be based upon analyses of unusual number 
and accuracy. It shows that the food to which it refers is 
wanting in some of the most important saline constituents 
of the body ; — such as the phosphates *, sulphates, and 
chlorides, which are hourly leaving the organism in com- 

* It may be estimated that a given weight of potatoes contains scarcely 
one-tenth of the phosphate of magnesia present in the same quantity of 
wheat. 



322 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

paratively large quantity. And that, in addition to this 
grave fault, it contains so small a proportion of protein, 
that we may calculate about thirteen pounds of Potatoes 
as the quantity which a man ought daily to consume, in 
order to replace the waste of his body by a sufficient sup- 
ply of histogenetic constituents in his food. ■ At least this 
would be the amount of Potatoes corresponding to the 
protein which experience shows to be enough, and not 
too much, for the daily ration of a soldier ; that is, for 
the food of an adult male, in good health, and habituated 
to moderate, but not excessive, bodily labour. Lastly, it- 
need hardly be added, that the form and arrangement of 
the protein contained in the Potato are such as would 
scarcely ever allow it to be as well digested as the protein 
contained in the bread and meat of the soldier's ration. 
Hence its less suitable quality would require to be com- 
pensated by a still further increase of quantity. While 
it is altogether devoid of fat. 

But the mixture of the Potato with other alimentary 
substances, and especially with meat or milk, removes all 
these objections, and restores it to its proper rank in the 
scale of diet. Indeed, just as, in theory, the addition of 
protein, fat, and chloride of sodium, would give the above 
analysis exactly that complement necessary to the com- 
position of a typical food ; so, in practice, numberless in- 
stances might be adduced to prove the experimental value 
of various admixtures of this kind, in exact proportion to 
the accuracy with which they correspond to such a com- 
plement. Potatoes and milk ; Potatoes and fish : Potatoes 
and bacon ; Potatoes and red-herrings, or even salt-cod or 



SUCCULENT EOOTS. 323 

ling; nay, even Potatoes and cabbage: — these, and a variety 
of other dishes, equally vulgar, and equally valuable, cor- 
rect the worst dietetic error of the " Potato-eater ; " and 
indeed disqualify him for this title, save in some such re- 
stricted sense as " Vegetarian " applies to an eater of eggs, 
cheese, and milk ; or (C Teetotaller " to a person who uses 
alcohol, both often and willingly, as a medicine. 

The defects of the Potato thus corrected, its large 
starchy ingredient is of extreme value ; the more so, that 
the diffusion and admixture of its starch remarkably 
favour due metamorphosis and absorption. And its saline 
constituents, its potash, and its organic acids, admirably 
explain that use of this vegetable as an anti-scorbutic, 
which experience has long proved to be one of its most 
valuable qualities. 

Succulent Roots. — Another class of vegetable foods may 
be found in the juicy roots * represented by the Turnip, 
Carrot, Parsnip, Beet, Mangold, &c. 

Although the exact composition of each of the above 
vegetables is, in some respects, unlike that of all the others, 
still they may be tolerably comprehended in a common 
description* Their large watery ingredient of 80 to 90 
per cent, is of course equivalent to a small solid residue, 
and nutritive power. Their protein, chiefly in the form of 
soluble vegetable albumen, ranges from 1 to 3 per cent. ; 
the former proportion being nearer the average, the latter 
rarely attained, save in the case of the red Beet. Their 
sugar is in large quantity; ranging, it would seem, in 

* Botanically, of course, these fleshy succulent enlargements of the 
underground stem are not roots, though usually so termed. 

Y 2 



324 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

these roots generally, from 5 to 15 per cent, of the fresh 
vegetable, or 90 to 95 per cent, of the solid residue of 
the juice; a proportion often exceeded in favourable spe- 
cimens of the Beet from which sugar is manufactured. A 
variable (and hitherto undetermined) quantity of pectin 
(C 12 H 16 O 10 ), with dextrin, gum, and a little starch ; a small 
proportion ( 15 1 QQ th) of fatty matter ; and compounds such 
as inulin (C 12 H 10 O 10 ), and carotin (10C 5 H 4 ) ; make up the 
remaining organic constituents : which, on the whole, must 
be regarded as collective^ rich in nutriment. 

The ash, which forms about 1^ to H per cent, of the 
fresh substance, appears from the analyses of Boussingault 
to differ from that of the Potato in some important par- 
ticulars. The total amount of bases differs little in the 
two ; but, in addition to the potash largely present in both, 
and a considerable amount of magnesia, these pectinous 
roots contain soda and lime in much greater proportions 
than does the Potato. Of the inorganic acids, the phosphoric 
is greatly below its proportion in the Potato. The quan- 
tities of the organic acids are scarcelv determined : but the 
malic and citric acids, which predominate among them, 
seem in the fresh vegetable to be combined chiefly with 
potash and lime. 

Fruits. — The fruits most cultivated in this climate — 
Apples, Pears, Plums, Peaches, Apricots, Cherries, Goose- 
berries, Currants, &c. — have in many respects a composi- 
tion analogous to the preceding. A watery ingredient 
ranging from 70 to 80 per cent. : from 2 to 6 of gum and 
pectin; 10 to 25 of sugar: a variable but small propor- 
tion of protein (averaging J per cent.?): and about H 



I 



VALUE OF EOOTS AXD FEUITS. 325 

per cent, of malic ot other organic acid ; — might be 
regarded as their mean composition. Of course the 
insoluble, fibrous, or cellular substance of all these fruits, 
and the woody masses of some of them, add other in- 
gredients; which, in any quantity, further detract from 
their nutritious qualities* 

Looking at the mere composition of both these groups 
of vegetable substances, it cannot be doubted that their 
nutritive value is very considerable. But, even allowing for 
the influence of habit, and for the probable, though vague, 
transmission of digestive peculiarities by hereditary de- 
scent, experience seems to indicate that they are unfit 
to form the staple of human food. Their chemistry per- 
haps in some degree explains this fact. Deficient as most 
of them are in the proteinous principle, they are, so far, 
unsuited for the maintenance of Nutrition, without the 
admixture of other and more azotised substances. In the 
case of some of them, a process of drying and rough 
powdering, which produces a kind of coarse meal, obviates 
some of the effects of the large watery element that 
dilutes their more nourishing ingredients. Their de- 
ficiency in fatty matter, and in phosphates, as well as in 
other salts, constitutes another explanation of their 
insufficiency as food. Nor must it be forgotten, that the 
scanty digestibility of many of these vegetables reduces 
their nutritive value far below what a mere analysis 
might suggest ; large proportions of their substance pass- 
ing through the digestive tube with comparatively little 
change. Hence, while their composition might perhaps 
indicate that nothing save a warm climate, and a scanty 

T 3 



326 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

daily waste, would allow their large sugary and gummy 
ingredients, and small proteinous constituents, to sustain 
Nutrition ; the organs of Digestion themselves enhance the 
difficulties which the concurrence of the above circum- 
stances with those relating to the growth or culture of 
these fruits and roots in sufficient quantity would together 
imply. In short, they are, relatively to the human organs, 
too indigestible for a staple food : indigestible, probably, 
both in the sense that they do not evoke digestive juices 
of proper quantity and quality ; and that they cannot yield 
up sufficient of their constituents in their transit through 
the human alimentary canal. And even when improved in 
these respects by proper cookery, they still remain valuable 
rather as supplements or variations of the habitual food, 
than as substitutes for such articles as meat, bread, or even 
Potatoes. 

The precise manner in which their pectinous constituent 
is applied to the uses of the organism can scarcely be at 
present explained. But its composition is so far akin to 
that of the gum and sugar by which it is accompanied, 
that we may fairly presume it to subserve purposes analo- I 
gous to those accomplished by these hydrates of carbon, 
among which substances it may indeed be almost classed. 
And the direct nutritive usefulness thus claimed for pectin 
can hardly be denied to those organic acids associated with 
it : — acids which seem not only to disappear in the blood, 
where they probably undergo an oxidation that ultimately 
converts them into carbonic acid and water, but also to 
subserve still more definitely to the 'regeneration and in- 
terchange of the various tissues. 



GREEN HERBS. 327 

Indeed, with respect to both the salts and acids of these 
vegetables, it is important to recollect that there are many 
phenomena of health, as well as of disease, which indicate, 
far more decisively than can be explained by our present 
knowledge of Physiological Chemistry, how great is the 
value of such ingredients to the organism in general. 
Without at all denying that albumen, starch, gum, may 
possess very dissimilar nutritive characters and values in 
the various forms in which they are afforded by different 
kinds of food, — characters such as our chemistry can 
scarcely hope to appreciate, — we may at least find more 
striking distinctions, between many of these vegetables, in 
the quantity and quality of the ingredients associated with 
these alimentary constituents. And as the incontrollable 
longing of Man after variety of diet is especially noticed 
in the cultivation and consumption of fruits and vegetables, 
and his sense of taste is especially distinguished for the 
delicacy with which he distinguishes — shall we say the 
catholicity with which he appreciates? — the innumerable 
shades of flavours offered by these various kinds of food, it 
seems evident that health and instinct here go hand in 
hand. Beyond a certain limit, indeed, the disregard of 
this instinct rarely fails to attract or enforce disease ; which 
(as in the case of the scurvy still occasionally met with in 
our large towns, and formerly raging with great danger 
and severity during the winter scarcity of vegetables and 
fruits,) may well serve to advise us that, within certain 
limits, this instinctive taste is based on a bodily want ; the 
satisfying of which is not a concession to luxury, but a 
payment of the just claims of health. 

Y 4 



328 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

Green herbs. — The shoots, leaves, &c, of various plants, 
may be regarded as a class of vegetable food distinct from 
the preceding. In composition, however, many of them 
closely approach the mean estimate above given for 
the succulent roots. But it is hardly necessary to say how 
great are the variations in their ingredients. For a con- 
trast of even the commoner esculent vegetables of this 
kind would abundantly suggest their great diversity from 
each other, in respect to chemical, as well as physical, pro- 
perties. For example, not only do the various kinds of 
Cabbage, the Lettuce, Asparagus, Spinach, Celery, and 
numberless other vegetables used as food, differ materially 
from each other in both these respects ; but, as every house- 
keeper knows, offer considerable differences of value in 
different specimens, according to their age, culture, and 
preparation. 

Hence the following rules may sufficiently modify the 
preceding statement as to their general analysis, and the 
presumption it affords us respecting their nutritive value. 
Starch especially abounds in the young plant ; in which it- 
is often associated with albuminous substances that occupy 
the various cells of the vegetable organism, and from 
which the comparatively soft texture of these and all other 
parts permits its easy extraction by the digestive function. 
Conversely, the process of vegetable development, even if it 
should not exhaust the stores of these nutrient materials de- 
posited for the use of the young plant, rarely fails to render 
them far less useful ; by enclosing them within cavities of 
tough cellulose, or of hard woody materials, such as defy 
any ordinary process of solution in the human alimentary 






ESCULENT FUNGUSES. 329 

canal. Sugar rarely abounds in these plants. Grum is 
much more plentiful. Salts are especially abundant ; po- 
tash generally exceeding soda ; and even the chloride of 
sodium being occasionally plentiful (in spinach, according 
to Saalmueller, 13 per cent.). 

It is chiefly in the older plant, however, that any large 
quantity of saline ingredients is present ; and their increase 
is often accompanied with what is almost a proportional 
decrease of water. Lastly, the more specific properties of 
the particular vegetable are generally associated, not only 
with its growth, but especially with its development % of 
green tissues under the action of light: — giving it, for ex- 
ample, the stimulant and sedative properties attributed to 
the Mustard and Lettuce respectively; or a rank, and 
even poisonous quality, such as proper cookery alone can 
banish or reduce to safe limits. 

Other vegetables. — Without enlarging the narrow limits 
laid down for these sketches of food, two or three groups 
of vegetable aliments may be alluded to, as falling without 
the boundaries of the preceding classes. The dried fruits, 
exemplified by the Eaisin, Prune, Date, Fig, are chiefly 
remarkable for the large quantity of sugar which they 
possess ; as well as for that considerable proportion of pro- 
tein which the loss of their water enables the two latter 
especially to show. The Melon tribe, besides a large (95 
to 97) watery constituent, and the poverty of solids this 
circumstance implies, have little which is chemically re- 
markable. The Fungi, in which the watery ingredient is 
reduced to one-tenth, are rich in albumen ; and also contain 
a large proportion of sugar, as well as of dextrin and 



330 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

fatty matters. Their nutritive qualities, depending partly 
on these four first constituents, are, however, often alloyed 
by the poisonous properties of the organic acids which also 
enter into their composition. The proper selection of 
species is of course the most obvious precaution against 
this risk. But the younger funguses, and those which grow 
in situations freely exposed to sun and air, are far less 
dangerous ; so much so, as to be often harmless even in 
doubtful species. Lastly, in some of the Algceand Mosses, 
starch, sugar, and dextrin or pectin, are present in con- 
siderable quantity. In the dried Iceland-moss, for in- 
stance, as much as 40 to 70 per cent, of a starchy ingre- 
dient has been found (Berzelius and Schneidermann) : in 
the Carrageen or Irish-moss, about as much pectin. Both 
yield to boiling water a large percentage of these nutri- 
tious constituents ; the decoction, which cools down to a 
jelly, being so nourishing and so easily digestible, as to be 
comparable to a vegetable soup. 



331 



CHAP. IX. 

CONDIMENTS. 

Condiments, their Character. — Their Kelations to Food and Medicine. — 
Salt as illustrating these Eelations. — Its Uses. — Eelation of Salt Meat 
to Scurvy. — Effects of excessive Ingestion of Salt. — Exceptions to its 
Use ; in Man, in Animals. — Acrid or Stimulant Condiments. — Their Uses 
with reference to Appetite, Circulation, Secretion. — Spices. — Their Use 
as Medicaments. — Complementary Nature of some Condiments. — 
Alliaceous Condiments. — Their Varieties. — Active Principles of Vegetable 
Condiments. — Oils. — Alkaloids. — Condiments as Ingredients of Sauces 
or Complementary Foods. 

The distinction, among the various substances ordinarily 
used as food, of a class of ingredients called condiments 
— which give savour rather than nourishment, and are 
thus only useful when blended and united (as their ety- 
mology, con, duo, implies) with other substances more 
strictly assimilable or alimentary — is too old * and too 
valid to question, too well-known and understood to require 
much illustration. 

Nevertheless, easy as it is to recognise the class of con- 
diments by its vague outlines as thus indicated, it is 
quite impossible to define its exact limits ; or to draw the 
lines which separate flavour from food, and food from 

* Thus Sir Thomas Brown (Vulgar Errours, b. iii. c. 22) says, "For many 
things are swallowed by animals, rather for condiment, gust, or medicament, 
than any substantial nutriment." 



332 CONDIMENTS. 

medicine. Indeed, to this fault, more or less incidental to 
all classifications of natural objects, the kinship of which 
involves kindred properties, we may add another, more 
inherent to the above distinction. Flavour, in general, 
increases not only the pleasure, but the profit of eating ; 
and is thus, indirectly, tantamount to an increase of ali- 
ment. Nay, more, the choice between foods almost 
identical in the broader features of their chemical com- 
position is often determined by characters such as are 
chiefly condimentary ; so that, for example, the preference 
of one variety of butter or oil to another, or even of 
butter to other fats, may be regarded, under this aspect, 
as the choice of a condimented, rather than of a mono- 
tonous, hydro-carbon. Lastly, a very large proportion of 
the most valuable drugs or medicaments of modern civili- 
sation resemble the simples or herbs of the savage, in the 
circumstance of their being, in some sense, substitutes fot 
the collateral ingredients of proper food ; or casual, rather 
than habitual, condiments. The use of Scurvy-grass by Arctic 
voyagers ; the spring course of cooling herbs taken by our 
ancestors, after their long winter course of salted meats ; 
the Lemon-juice required to prevent or cure scurvy among 
mariners, whose food also shows an excess of salt and a 
deficiency of vegetables ; the salines, the iron, the Taraxa- 
cum, used by the dyspeptic or chlorotic ; perhaps even 
the cod-liver oil consumed by the strumous — are all ex- 
amples of medicaments, the unquestionable benefits of 
which render them tantamount, in some respects to con- 
diments, in others to food. And, therapeutically as well as 
dietetically, it is important to bear this in mind : if only 



SALT. 333 

as an additional safe-guard against the error, expressed by- 
Sir Walter Scott's blacksmith turned physician, but per- 
haps sometimes implied by more legitimate authorities — 
that the " twa simples, laudamy and calamy " may be 
ranked with those herbs which often minister to the 
healing of our diseases by repairing the defects, or re- 
moving the excesses, of our habitual food. 

Salt, or chloride of sodium, the first of all condiments, will 
best illustrate and confirm this view. A large constituent 
of the blood and all the tissues ; a source of the gastric acid 
(compare pp. 119, 120); a more than incidental ingre- 
dient of all the secretions ; and therefore, a necessary part 
of the aliment ; it is strictly a food of the highest value. 
On the other hand, though it is casually present in many 
articles of food, the fact that it is generally absent in that 
quantity which is really requisite to meet its expenditure 
l}y the organism, and that it therefore requires to be added 
to (or rather blended with) the alimentary substances com- 
monly made use of, renders it practially mo^t important to 
regard it as a condiment, however indispensable an one. 
Lastly, the results of its habitual deficiency — as shown, in 
Man, by the access of dyspepsia or other diseases, easily 
remedied by its use ; or, among animals, by that extraor- 
dinary craving for it which often compels a timid Deer to 
risk its life, and reverse its habits, by going hundreds of 
miles through danger and difficulty to a " salt-lick " — 
prove it to be just as truly a medicament: nay, more, a 
drug which seems to be capable of being suddenly accu- 
mulated in the system ; and of being thereafter so slowly 



334 CONDIMENTS. 

and scantily expended as to meet the unfavourable circum- 
stances of its large and intermittent supply. 

Perhaps some of the details of its action require a 
fuller statement. The deprival of all salt was an ancient 
Dutch punishment for criminals ; and is said to have been 
generally followed by disease, decay, and even a maggoty 
state, of the tissues. The bread and salt of Arab hospi- 
tality ; the salt which the Hindoo affects to regard as an 
obligation of faithful service ; the forms of excommuni- 
cation of the Eomish church : — all attest the result of 
experience as to its indispensable character. At the same 
time, this very character prevents our more accurate know- 
ledge of the results of its withdrawal ; by making such a 
deficiency an element of the severest famine, rather than 
an example of the mere absence of salt from the food. 
And as it is used by many persons in great excess of what 
is necessary, the health certainly often observed in th£ 
case of persons who have an aversion to it as a condiment 
in all but the smallest quantities, is quite explicable as 
a difference of degree and not of kind : the moderate 
amount of salt really wanted by the system being fur- 
nished by the food or its adjuncts. 

In domestic animals, its copious, as distinguished from 
its necessary, use seems greatly to facilitate the process of 
fattening. But the process of artificial fattening, if pro- 
perly pursued, may be regarded as only an expression of 
rapid and exalted Nutrition in general. And the eager- 
ness with which Cows and Horses lick salt, may fairly be 
taken as an indication that this craving for it corresponds 
to a deficiency of it in their ordinary food. Guided by 



SALTED MEAT. 335 

such instinct, the use of salt by brutes * seems never to 
amount to any real excess. 

The process of salting meat, however, impregnates it 
with so large and undue an amount of salt, as to cause 
persons who feed on such meat to exemplify the results of 
excess in reference to this condiment. Doubtless, scurvy is 
often privative ; in the sense that a mere absence of vege- 
table food will produce it in many constitutions, in spite 
of the copious ingestion of the fresh meat of tame cattle. 
Frequently, indeed, are such cases seen in medical prac- 
tice. Barely, too, analogous phenomena have been wit- 
nessed on a large scale.* * But it cannot be questioned 
that the effect of salt meat is by no means exclusively 
attributable to any coincident absence of vegetable food, 
or even to that partial extraction of its dissolved and 
watery constituents which this mode of preparation in- 
volves (chap. xii). The excess of salt injures the meat in a 
more positive way ; and not only, as in artificial digestion 
(p. 124), impairs the powers of that gastric juice by 
which it has to be taken up ; but seems to aid in bringing 
about that faulty and diffluent state of the blood, and of 
the tissues generally, which the phenomena collectively 
known as " scurvy " seem to exemplify. 

It cannot, however, be doubted that a large excess 
of salt may be constantly taken into the human organism, 
from the food, without any detriment to what is apparently 
robust health. Of such an excess of salt, a large quantity 
makes but a very brief stay in the blood, being at once 

* As in an English regiment decimated by scorbutic disease under a 
fresh meat diet in South Africa many years ago. 



336 CONDIMENTS. 

carried out by the stream of urine. Indeed^ the excess 
itself seems easily to pass out by all channels : not only, 
for instance, by the healthy excretions, but even by the 
effusions of disease ; in which its proportion seems often 
increased by a reabsorption of the watery and other in- 
gredients of the original exsudation. In this way the 
fluid of ascites is often highly salted ; or the sputum of 
pneumonia exhibits a quantity of this chloride, which goes 
far to explain its cotemporaneous deficiency from what 
is ordinarily its chief channel of removal from the body : 
to wit, the urine. A proportion of such an habitual excess 
is, however, left in the body ; most of the tissues of which 
probably become impregnated with a quantity of salt far 
larger than would suffice for the most vigorous health.* 

There are many apparent exceptions to the rule of the 
indispensableness of salt. Numbers of wild animals seem 
to have little access to any quantity of this substance. 
And many wild or semi-civilised tribes of Mankind are 
said to abstain from all use of it as a condiment, in which 
form its taste causes them unmistakable disgust. But it is 
doubtful whether such instances are really anomalies. For 
it is certain that many vegetables and spring waters con- 

* In a recent narrative of a protracted residence in Polynesia, the 
humorous suggestion of Sydney Smith, that the hospitality of a native 
chief always kept "a cold missionary on the sideboard," is robbed of half 
its terrors by the statement, that the cannibals of this region greatly 
object to the distasteful, if not unwholesome, saltness of their European 
visitors when cooked as food ; in contrast with whom their own countrymen 
have quite a sweet and agreeable flavour. (Nineteen Years in Polynesia. 
By the Rev. G-. Turner. Snow, London: I860.) Conversely, the cannibals 
of Western Africa find (according to Hutchinson) a relishing saline flavour 
in the inhabitants of the sea-coast, by comparison with those living inland. 



HEATING CONDIMENTS. 337 

tain a considerable proportion of salt ; and probable, that 
the proportion thus received by Herbivorous animals 
would communicate to their flesh enough to render this, 
in its turn, a tolerable supply to the Carnivorous animals 
or tribes by whom it is eaten. And the moderate quan- 
tity requisite, if tenaciously retained (combined ?) in the 
organism, may render unimportant all further addition 
to the above supply. In consonance with such an ex- 
planation it will be generally found that it is in the 
inexhausted and equable composition of a virgin or uncul- 
tivated soil; in the wild cattle who feed on its grasses, 
rich in minerals (and especially in chlorides) ; and in the 
active savage or semi-savage who feeds on such an animal 
food ; that we find the chief (if not the only) instances of 
a complete and habitual neglect of this condiment. Con- 
versely, the food most deficient in this salt is that which 
notoriously most requires it ; so that, for example, the 
dyspepsia caused by its deficiency in a predominantly 
starchy food, is at once relieved by its medicinal use.* 

Heating condiments. — A variety of acrid and stimulat- 
ing substances — instanced by the peppers, mustard, horse- 
radish, &c. — constitute the next group of condiments. 

Concerning these, some would perhaps think the ques- 
tion " Are they of any service ? " a necessary preliminary 
to the question " How are they of use ? " 



* In Dr. Livingstone's Travels lately published, the remarkable fidelity 
of his description of the effects of such a food permitted me to recognise 
a variety of dyspepsia which I had long distinguished, both in its nature 
and causes, from other forms of this complaint. (See the author's work 
" On Diseases of the Stomach," p. 366.) 

Z 



338 CONDIMENTS. 

It would be easy to make a fair show of reasoning 
against their general value ; to insist, for instance, that 
they have been, in all ages and countries, a means for 
tickling the luxurious palate by an artificial stimulus, and 
for provoking a fictitious appetite beyond that which 
nature affords. No doubt, too, the mass of civilized 
Mankind would do very well without them : the affluent 
dyspeptic gaining by their loss; and the poor (like the 
discreet Mr. Weller) caring very little for horse-radish 
when they could get beef. 

But, on the other hand, experience shows that they are 
too generally adopted to permit us to suppose them quite 
valueless. The very large quantities habitually made use 
of in some countries — India. Abyssinia, Mexico, and 
South America generally — may be referred, partly to the 
exaggeration which custom can bring about in all social 
observances, partly to that decrease of sensibility which 
the digestive organs acquire under the influence of habit. 
But taken in moderation, these condiment- seem useful by 
increasing the afflux of blood to the various secreting 
structures, and thus provoking a larger supply of solvent 
iuices. And as it is certainly in tropical (or at any rate, 
hot) countries, that they are most used and most useful, 
they may be conjectured to help the system, as well as the 
digestive organs, to overcome the languor and debility 
which external heat tends to produce : as well as — inci- 
dentally or specifically — to contend against the direct 
unwholesomeness of some of these warm climates. 

Whether any of these condiments have the power of act- 
ing directly upon secretion — so as to provoke (for example) 






THEIR INFLUENCE ON SECRETION. 339 

the formation and effusion of an increased quantity of 
gastric juice — is a question impossible to decide, in our 
existing ignorance of the exact mechanism of the secretory- 
process. But a variety of considerations appear to militate 
against their having any such virtue ; and reduce their 
probable influence upon the digestive juices to that of 
aiding the determination of blood towards the mucous 
surfaces which they stimulate; and of thus furthering 
the process of secretion, in a way which is subordinate 
rather than essential, and which increases the watery and 
saline ingredients of. the particular secretion, rather than 
its more energetic and specific organic constituent. The 
obvious value of such a collateral aid seems quite to ex- 
plain the teachings of experience as to these condiments. 
While not merely the relation of that irritation w T hich they 
produce to the inflammatory process, but especially the 
history of experimental research on these various digestive 
juices — the obtaining of which has often been sought for 
by the aid of such stimulants — disclaims for these acrid 
spices any larger or truer influence on secretion. 

But besides the above properties, it is evident this class 
of condiments possesses others ; by virtue of which many of 
its members must be regarded as not only complementary 
to deficiencies in the composition of food, but as exercising 
on the whole organism an influence of a much more recon- 
dite kind. These properties, as already noticed, may fairly 
be termed " medicinal," if we look only to their effects, as 
verified by experience, in preventing or curing disease. And 
in any inquiry into their medicinal virtues, there are obvious 
grounds for surmising an action which, in the case of some, 

Z 2 



340 COXBIMEXTS. 

is mainly local, on the alimentary canal ; in others, is pre- 
dominantly on the system at large, presumably through 
the mediation of the nervous system. So that, for ex- 
ample, many of the spices may be vaguely (but not inac- 
curately) looked upon as related to such stimulant - 
mustard on the one hand ; and to the powerful cerebro- 
spinants of tea, coffee, and even alcohol, on the other : 
and as medicinal in both aspects. It is therefore no 
wonder that they have been, from earliest ages, some of 
the most useful of our drugs : — just as, in the bitter herbs 
used by some nations in cookery, or the salicine from 
willow-bark (Ruempfcheri) added to some fish in Ger- 
many, we can see how, if it were the fashion to take 
quinine in such a manner, this admirable drug would 
fulfil many of the purposes of a condiment. 

Perhaps the strangest instance of the partly comple- 
mentary office of some condiments may be found in the 
mechanical (as distinguished from the qualitati they 

are rarely made to fulfil. The bee-hunter of Ceylon mixes 
with honey a comparatively innutritious mass of soft 
tindery wood, which gives it the necessary bulk and con- 
sistence. Even here, however, the condiment — for such 
the substance really is — must probably be looked upon as 
in some degree qualitative : containing, like the bark 
sometimes added to bread in Norway, a scanty supply of 
nutriment. 

Alliaceous condiments constitute another large and im- 
portant group, instanced by the Onion and its congeners. 
Botanically, the group is imperfect : or rather should be 
enlarged so as to include various substances, possessing 



ALLIACEOUS CONDIMENTS. 341 

very different degrees of what is, in all, substantially the 
same odour; from the mild Onion of warm climates, to the 
small and potent Onion of northern latitudes, the Leek, 
Eschalot, Garlic, and even the Asafoetida which is the de- 
light of Asiatic gourmets. Their rise in stimulating power, 
and in intensity of condimentary flavour, for the most part 
corresponds to their association with a decreasing amount 
of nutritious fluids and solids. The large sulphurous con- 
stituent which seems to be associated with this odour, is 
doubtless in part applied to the purposes of the organism. 
But it seems to be so largely in excess of any such use, 
that much of it escapes by the excretory channels of the 
skin and lungs : in the case of Asafoetida, literally tainting 
the air for some distance to leeward of its votary. 

Looking at these vegetable condiments as a class, it is 
obvious that, though their alimentary — in other words, 
assimilable — ingredients are subordinate to their stimu- 
lant or aromatic ones ; yet their valuable salts, and their 
often large proportion of organic substances or juices, 
render them strictly food ; especially in the sense of their 
complementing what experience and instinct show to be 
deficiencies in the food to which they are added. And 
in this respect it must be owned that the gradations from 
the least to the most nourishing members of the class 
are too slight to justify any exact line of demarcation. 
So that, for example, in passing from the large Spanish 
Onion, through Leeks, Garlic, Horse-radish, Cinnamon 
and its congeners, to the various Peppers, which attain a 
kind of climax of condimentary power in the Capsicums, 
it would be impossible to say where food ended, and con- 

z 3 



342 COXDDIEXTS. 

diment began ; much more to deny, even to the most sti- 
mulating, all possibility of its adding some minute (and 
not uninfluential) ingredient to the organism. 

Subtracting, however, those alimentary ingredients more 
or less incidental to them all, or abstracting the stimu- 
lating ingredients to which they chiefly owe their condi- 
mentary virtues, would alike give us a group of bodies 
deserving some general notice. Of these bodies, some of 
the most important are a series of oils, possessing great 
acridity of taste, and an equally powerful odour. These 
oils are sometimes — as in the case of mustard — products 
rather than educts ; being formed by the reactions of 
various organic ingredients of the Mustard-seed under the 
influence of a kind of fermentation. Oftener, they are 
present as essential oils ; which are sometimes termed 
ethereal oils, although it is more than doubtful whether 
those elements of ether whicli are present can be regarded 
as combined with the other ingredients in any such form. 
In Mustard and Horse-radish, as well as in the Onion, 
Garlic, and Asafoetida, the large sulphurous constituent of 
the condiment is combined with its oil : which, in the case 
of Mustard, seems also to possess another remarkable or- 
ganic ingredient — cyanogen — united with it in the form 
of sulpho-cyanogen. 

Alkaloids are, on the whole, a far less frequent con- 
stituent of these condiments : being almost limited to the 
piperine of Pepper. Both oils and alkaloids seem to be 
given off by the skin, the lungs, and especially by the 
urine, with little change : a circumstance which certainly 
goes far to support the view, that as regards some of 



ACID CONDIMENTS. 3.43 

these condiments, their local action on the. digestive canal, 
and their general effect on the nervous system after ab- 
sorption, constitute their whole value. In all of them, 
indeed, their contribution of assimilable material must be 
regarded as the smallest and most doubtful element of 
their usefulness. 

It may, however, be questioned whether any statistical 
view of condiments would not qualify such an opinion ; by 
showing that, in practice, condiments are generally used 
in combination with materials, the composition and other 
properties of which render them complementary foods. For 
all the milder condiments essentially claim this position. 
While the stronger are often used as the ingredients of 
sauces, in which they are not only diluted in intensity, but 
are supplemented by other flavorous and odorous sub- 
stances, the composition and uses of which for the most 
part approach those characteristic of the condimentary 
class. 

Acids, as condiments, are, if we except the oxalic acid 
scantily contained in some salads, almost restricted to the 
acetic, and to the citric of lemon-juice. Vinegar, if used 
in small quantities, appears to have little effect on the 
organism generally. But, like all the acids, it seems to 
promote digestion ; probably by its influence on the gastric 
secretion, the solvent properties of which it strengthens 
(p. 123) both in and out of the body. In large quantities 
it is diaphoretic ; a circumstance probably associated with 
its larger consumption in warm countries, as in Spain. Its 
prolonged and excessive use appears to lead to emaciation, 
and to other serious symptoms of impaired Nutrition* 

Z 4 



344 TEA ASD COFFEE. 



CHAP. X. 

TEA AND COFFEE. 

Tea and Coffee. — Their Introduction into Europe. — Eesults of their general 
Use. — Their Contrast and Analogy; in Effects, in Composition. — Tea. — 
Its Source. — Its Varieties (Black and Green). — Coffee; its Source. — 
Composition of Tea, and of its Infusion. — Composition of raw Coffee. — 
Effect of Roasting. — Proximate Ingredients of its Decoction. — Nutritive 
Value r of Tea and Coffee. — Physiological Effects. — Their possible 
Relation. — Theory of the economizing Action of Tea and Coffee. — Re- 
searches of Boecker and others hereon. — Resemblances, and Cont: 
of their Action. — Objections to such Views in general ; to these Experi- 
ments in particular. — Cocoa and its Preparations. — Their Contrast with 
Tea and Coffee. — Their dietetic Value. 

Tea and coffee, two drinks gradually introduced into 
Europe about 200 years ago, and now in general use 
over the whole civilized world — the various nations of 
which they may almost be said to share as their respective 
votaries — occupy a position in the list of dietetic sub- 
stances altogether disproportionate to the scanty (and even 
doubtful) contribution which they bring to the organism, 
as a true or assimilable food. In that silent revolution of 
Diet w T hich they may claim to have effected, scarcely any 
large element of political or individual life seems altogether 
uninfluenced. Commercial intercourse, social habits, 
moral culture, mental development, and even bodily dis- 
eases and diatheses — in respect to all of which the present 



THEIR HISTORIC INFLUENCE. 345 

epoch offers so remarkable a contrast to the sixteenth 
century — appear to owe no small share of this contrast 
to the various and important changes worked or permitted 
by tea and coffee in our food and drink generally. As 
more harmless luxuries, and less potent stimulants, than 
those alcoholic drinks which they have in great measure 
substituted and displaced, they have doubtless been of 
infinite service ; and have indirectly brought about a great 
diminution of the grosser intemperance prevalent when 
wine, ale, and " strong- waters " were used much as tea and 
coffee now are. Sometimes, it may fairly be presumed, 
directly stimulating the mental faculties; but oftener 
merely limiting or obviating the drowsy self-complacency 
and thoughtlessness which are produced by any excess of 
the coarser fermented liquors; it can scarcely be ques- 
tioned that they have exercised a vast and beneficent in- 
fluence on the two last centuries of Mankind. Indeed, 
what between their direct influence in promoting mental 
activity and bodily comfort, and their office not merely as 
substitutes but as antidotes for alcohol, it is no fanciful 
estimate of their value to regard them as greatly answer- 
able for that diffusion of mental industry, and of mental 
acquirements, which constitutes the most striking psycho- 
logical phenomenon of the condition of the European 
races of Mankind in the present day. And it is either an 
extraordinary coincidence, or a remarkable illustration of 
the degree in which the experience and observation of 
Man ultimately lead him to the satisfaction of his most 
delicate and complex requirements with all the precision 
originally conferred by instinct on the lower animals — 



346 TEA AND COFFEE. 

that two plants, widely dissimilar both in their botanical 
affinities and in their geographical distribution, should 
yield, from two no less diverse parts of their structure, 
products which, prepared by no less dissimilar treatment 
in each case, afford the materials for two aqueous decoc- 
tions or infusions, possessing much the same dietetic 
uses; associated (as chemistry shows) with a composition 
in which the three main ingredients — an alkaloid, an 
astringent, and a volatile aroma — exhibit what is almost 
an identical constitution, and are combined with each 
other in no very dissimilar proportions. 

Tea, when not adulterated, consists of the young leaf- 
buds, stalks, leaves, and seed-pods of two species {Thea 
bohea and Thea viridis) of a shrub which, according to 
Linnaeus, is allied to the well-known Camellia. Hitherto 
grown for European consumption chiefly in the hilly dis- 
tricts of the Chinese territory, between the 20th and 35th 
degrees of north latitude, and the 110th and 125th de- 
grees of east longitude — to the northern or Tartar region 
of which it is probably indigenous — it seems destined to 
a large and successful cultivation in several analogous 
climates ; and especially in British India, on the southern 
slopes of the Himalayas. 

The distinction of the tea imported here from China. 
into the two varieties of black and green, seems, both from 
the earlier researches of Lettsom, and the recent travels 
of Fortune, to be based exclusively on various details of 
its collection and preparation. The green tea, which is 
dried more slowly, and at a lower heat, evidently retains 
a far greater amount of its original strength and flavour; 



COMPOSITION OF TEA. 



347 



a circumstance in which such a difference of preparation 
seems to act on the Tea-leaf, much as it would on the 
flavour and associated characters of many other vegetable 
substances, such as Potatoes, Onions, Mushrooms, &c. 
The finer teas are picked earlier in the season, and hence 
consist of smaller and younger leaves. 

Coffee is the bean or albumen which, together with the 
fleshy husk enclosing it, constitutes the fruit of a Kubia- 
ceous bush or tree bearing the same name (Coffea). This 
shrub is said to be indigenous to various districts of Eastern 
Africa ; whence its culture has successively spread to Arabia, 
Persia, Ceylon, Java, and America. 

From the analyses made by Mulder, it would seem that 
— in addition to variable quantities of many other ingre- 
dients, probably of less importance — a thousand parts of 
tea, as ordinarily imported, include the following con- 
stituents : — 



Volatile, ethereal, or aromatic oil 


8 parts. 


Thein, (according to Peligot) 


. 58 


Tannic acid . 


. 158; 


Extractive .... 


. 208' 


Dextrin ...... 


. 98 


Albumen .... 


. 27 



In contradiction to the observations of Frank, Mulder 
has also shown that green tea contains more ethereal oil, 
tannic acid, and extractive, than black tea. The darker 
colour of this latter tea seems to depend on the partial 
development of various empyreumatic products, as well as 
on the influence of that greater atmospheric exposure to 
which it is subjected. Conformably with such a view, it 



348 TEA AND COFFEE. 

would appear, from Mulder's and Peligot's observations, 
that the black tea not only contains less of the above con- 
stituents, but that they are present in a much less soluble 
form ; so that nearly one-eighth less of soluble matter is 
taken up from it by boiling water, and a longer time is 
required for its infusion. The soluble ingredients of tea 
generally range from 29 to 46 parts per cent, of its weight, 
as shown by its loss when thus infused. 

All the newer teas are said to be avoided by the Chi- 
nese ; as unwholesome, and productive of various nervous 
symptoms. And it is evident that green tea must be re- 
garded as owing its strength to a greater retention of vo- 
latile ingredients; even while its delicacy is in some degree 
heightened by the immature (and therefore weaker) pro- 
perties of the leaves composing it. 

A physiological, or rather a proximate, analysis would 
divide the Tea-leaf into three parts, having very different 
relations to the system. The fragrant, volatile ingredient 
which may be distilled off from the infusion, is highly 
poisonous. Dr. Lettsom showed, a hundred years ago, that 
it is capable of paralyzing the hinder extremities of a 
frog, and even of causing death when introduced through 
a wound into its abdomen; and that it produces, in the 
human subject, the well-known symptoms of nervous agita- 
tion, nausea, and debility producible by an overdose of green 
tea. The remainder of the infusion is a bitter astringent 
extract; stomachic and exhilarating, if not provocative of 
appetite. The thehi which it contains seems, according to 
Lehmann, to produce effects akin to those of the volatile 
ingredient, when taken in large (10-grain) doses, and in 



COMPOSITION OP COFFEE. 349 

isolation from the other ingredients. Lastly, in the rude 
preparation adopted by the Tartars, who mix their tea 
with food so as to eat the leaves, as well as in the mode 
of tea-making formerly ascribed to the inhabitants of 
Java, who take the pounded grounds with the infusion, a 
variable proportion of its albumen and salts will doubtless 
be taken into the system. 

The analysis of coffee has yet to be made, so far as re- 
gards the nature and composition of the bean when pre- 
pared by roasting. Even as respects the raw bean, we can 
scarcely estimate the more important ingredients so pre- 
cisely as might be wished. Payen's analysis, for instance, 
exact as it seems to be, is strangely contrasted with the 
results of some other observers. According to it, how- 
ever, the more important ingredients may be arranged as 
follows : — 



Fatty matters (and some aromatic oils) 




12* parts 


per cent. 


Sugar, dextrin, &c. 




155 


>> 


Caffein ; free, and combined with tannic 


(caffe- 






tannic) acid and potash 




4-5 


>5 


Salts ..... 




7* 


>) 


"Water ..... 




12- 


J) 


Legumin and an azonized substance 




4- 


J> 



The process of roasting seems" to drive off all its water 
of moisture, and some of its other volatile ingredients, 
thus causing a loss of 15 to 25 per cent, of its weight. 
At the same time, as in the case of black tea, the heat to 
which the roasted bean is subjected converts its extractive 
ingredients into a mixture which is more slowly, as well 
as incompletely, dissolved by subsequent infusion. 



350 TEA AND COFFEE. 

What substances are hereby developed to forrn the 
strong aroma, can scarcely be conjectured. But it is said 
that this odour depends mainly on some modification of 
the caffeic and the caffetannic acids, the latter of which is 
thus severed from its caffein base. 

Physiologically, the unknown quantities and qualities of 
the ingredients of roasted coffee must doubtless be ar- 
ranged in groups like those of tea. A fragrant, volatile 
ingredient, which imparts its characteristic odour to the 
urine : — the special channel of its escape, with little change, 
from the body. An extractive, which is taken up in larger 
quantity from a decoction than an infusion. And lastly, 
ingredients, insoluble and proteinous, which are left in the 
" grounds " ; and which, though doubtless alimentary, are 
only consumed in so far as the powdering and infusion of 
the coffee permit them to remain suspended in the liquid 
as ordinarily drunk. 

It is probable that these three classes of constituents 
produce effects analogous to those of their chemical cor- 
relatives in tea. At least my own experiments entitle 
me to affirm, that the aromatic volatile ingredient, 
which is dissolved by infusion of the coffee in boiling 
water, and (as connoisseurs know ) becomes dissipated by 
long decoction, is the chief source of the stimulant and 
anti-narcotic effects of coffee. This conclusion is con- 
firmed by the observations of Lehmann. 

To decide the exact nutritive value of tea and coffee is 
a task confessedly beyond our existing knowledge to effect. 
Both as to their general uses, and the details of their 
action on the economy, we have but few facts : and these 



THEIR PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS. 3oI 

few too inexact (and perhaps too casual) to justify any 
satisfactory conclusion. 

That they contain few materials capable of assimilation 
or conversion into bodily tissues is sufficiently shown by 
their composition and preparation. That they are, in the 
main, useful ; and that the mass of mankind can habi- 
tually use them without detriment to health or longevity, 
are propositions none can fairly question. Indeed the 
systematic assertions of the Arabic and Chinese writers of 
their direct influence in protracting life, are, on the whole, 
to be received rather as impressions derived from ex- 
perience, than as the flatteries of national habits. Sub- 
stances which fight their way into general use against all 
the difficulties imposed by prejudices of race, or nation, or 
custom, are pretty sure (as may be instanced by opium 
and tobacco) to have had their disadvantages exaggerated, 
rather than overlooked. 

But in what precise way they are useful is a question 
more difficult to approach. Common experience indi- 
cates that their occasional (and in a minor degree their 
habitual) use has a threefold effect. Taken in moderation, 
they bring about a state of mental cheerfulness and 
activity, which seems to be closely connected with that 
sleeplessness their fuller dose can induce. They economise, 
and partially replace, assimilable food ; rendering the ap- 
petite somewhat less keen, and so enabling hunger to be 
appeased by a smaller or less nourishing alimentary 
ration. And they further seem to diminish the constitu- 
tional, as well as digestive, requirements of the system; 
not only allaying hunger, but permitting Nutrition to 



352 TEA AND COFFEE. 

be maintained at what (so far as we can see) is its normal 
levels under a systematically more scanty or monotonous 
allowance of food. 

How far these cerebral (or rather nervous) and nutri- 
tional effects depend on each other — how far, in other 
words, a heightened energy of the most subtle and domi- 
nant part of our machinery may not in itself suffice to de- 
termine a greater perfection or intensity, or a more exact 
regulation, and precise direction, of those reactions which 
constitute Nutrition — it is difficult even to conjecture aright. 
But there are traces of plausibility about such a view. 
Certainly few can gain from tea or coffee more than one 
of these two kinds of advantage. The hard-working day- 
labourer may make them tantamount to food ; the student 
may use them as a stimulus to cerebral activity, and a spur 
to mental effort. But I think it would generally be found 
that the latter of these two effects so far destroys the 
former, as to suggest that the increased mental labour of 
the student exhausts the very same nervous activity, 
which mediates the nutritive or alimentary usefulness of 
these stimulants to the labourer, by whom that activity is 
not thus expended at the source of its origin. 

But hitherto the facts collected on the nutritional in- 
fluence of tea and coffee are generally regarded as point- 
ing to a very different conclusion. Protraction of vital 
processes, and hence, diminution of vital products ; checked 
or decreased metamorphosis, as evinced by a decreased 
extrusion of carbonic acid, urea, and faeces ; — these are the 
details in which, as observed or deduced by various ac- 
curate and painstaking physiological chemists, we are 



THEIR PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS. 353 

asked to receive the chief (if not exclusive) explanation 
of the acknowledged value assigned by the experience of 
ages to tea and coffee. 

The facts bearing on this conclusion have been ascer- 
tained chiefly by the toilsome and exact researches of 
Boecker * 3 Lehmann f, and others, and may be summed up 
as follows : — The well-known influence of both tea and 
coffee in diminishing appetite, and satisfying the organism 
with a smaller quantity of food, is confirmed by the per- 
sistence of the bodily weight when they are substituted 
for a certain fraction of the food. In like manner, under 
a diet otherwise identical, there is a great diminution in 
the total amount of the various egesta, when tea or coffee 
replaces water. Under the use of tea, indeed, this diminu- 
tion equals about f lb. daily, of which about one-half is 
water. 

As respects their resemblances and contrasts, not only 
may it be asserted that the former are great, while the 
latter are small; but especially that these contrasts seem 
to refer almost exclusively to quantity or to degree, rather 
than to kind. The broader nutritional changes, for in- 
stance, inferred by Boecker and Lehmann from their ob- 
servations, are for the most part alike in the cases of 

* Boecker, Beitraege zur Heilkunde. Crefeld, 1849. 

f Lehmann, Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, Band Lxxxvii. Ueber 
den Kaffee als Getraenk in Chemisch-Physiologischer Hinsieht. It 
deserves, however, to be noticed that in his Physiologische Chemie (Band 
i. 143, and ii. 414), Lehmann alludes to some experiments made with 
Thein on five persons, as showing under the use of this alkaloid an increase 
of urea, such as he is in doubt whether to refer to a transformation and 
elimination of this highly azotised substance. 

A A 



354 TEA AND COFFEE. 

both agents. The daily excretion of urea, the daily exha- 
lation (both pulmonary and cutaneous) of water, are di- 
minished by tea and coffee. Both, too, I would add from 
researches of my own, undertaken on persons found to be 
amenable to the law noticed by Dr. Bence Jones *, defer 
and protract the digestive process. And, at least in some 
individuals, there is probably a still further agreement in 
their action, in the fact that the diminution of the daily 
faecal evacuations by the use of tea (as shown by Boecker), 
is producible by coffee also. 

The only contrasts deserving special notice are : — that 
coffee diminishes (4 to 3), while tea leaves unchanged, the 
exspiration of carbonic acid ; and that coffee increases (9 to 
10), while tea diminishes (35 to 34), the watery ingredient 
of the urine. The other differences may be almost summed 
up in the statement, that the operancy of coffee transcends 
that of tea ; as, for example, in the proportionate lowering 
of the daily quantity of urea by £, instead of -tV ; of 
uric acid \ 9 instead of \ ; of the exhalation of water 4-4, 
instead of -^ ; and also in its protracting digestion during 
ia period which I should roughly estimate as amounting to 
at least double that increase of duration which is brought 
about by an ordinary black tea. 

Fastening their attention chiefly on this limitation, or 
rather decrease, of excretory urea and carbonic acid, 
Boecker and others have regarded the action of tea and 
coffee as that of checking metamorphosis {Mauser-hi - 
mende or moulting-impeders) in the various tissues of the 

* The alkalescence of the iirine during the gastric digestion of a meal, 
as noticed at p. 120. 



THEIR PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS. 355 

body. But while it must be confessed that such a view is 
quite compatible with the deleterious properties they exert 
in large doses, and in some persons, it is not easy to see 
how it explains the well-known benefits far more com- 
monly and constantly derived from their use. Nay, more, 
it may be added that 5 if we confront such an interpreta- 
tion of the facts observed with the higher laws, and more 
exact and numerous facts, which Physiology offers, we 
shall find reasons for regarding it as erroneous. 

To raise, to better, to facilitate the vital functions by 
checking metamorphosis, is in flat contradiction with all 
that we know of Life ; with all that we feel of its fluctu- 
ations in our own bodies, or see of its manifestations through- 
out the whole Animal Kingdom. So far as we dare use 
such shallow and simple words for such deep and complex 
meanings, Life is flux ; change ; metamorphosis. Within 
natural limits, the amount of such flux measures the 
intensity and healthiness of our living. The checking or 
diminishing of the healthy w T aste is a modification which, 
in our own bodies*, would be associated with a lowering 
of health and activity ; and which, as effected by Nature 
(so to speak) in descending the Animal scale, seems 
always to be brought about at the expense of the total of 
Life ; in other words, of the quality or quantity of the 
collective vital functions. 

It is interesting to point out, that a diminution in the 
mere quantities of the crude ingesta, or even of the ul- 

* Benedek (Annalen der Chemie tmd Pharmacie, Bd. lxxvii.) has made 
some interesting observations -which strongly confirm the above view, as 
exemplified by the Urine. 

A A 2 



356 TEA AXD COFFEE. 

timate egesta, is perhaps compatible with a more perfect 
and complete execution of that Nutritive function, which 
elaborates the former into the latter class of substances. 
But this suggestion, though deserving of notice, ought 
scarcely to be further insisted on. For it is by the hasty 
adoption of such plausible suggestions that both persons 
and Sciences are often trammelled in the search after truth. 
Nor would it be prudent to push, to what might perhaps 
be considered its legitimate conclusions, that view respect- 
ing the twofold destiny of food already (p. 21) arrived at : 
by surmising that there may be agents which possess the 
power of so regulating the mutual relations of these two 
streams of alimentation (if I may use such a term) ; as 
to diminish the vascular and collateral destiny of the food, 
while they increase its other and more essential office in 
connection with the tissues. For, to speak frankly, it may 
be doubted whether this fundamental doctrine has strength 
and independence enough to sustain so important a super- 
structure. 

But the objections from larger facts — and especially 
from that law of animal Life just alluded to — are strength- 
ened by a critical consideration of these experiments them- 
selves ; which offer several defects suggesting caution in 
making them the ground of any large and general con- 
clusions. Habit and idiosyncrasy, for instance, are de- 
tails difficult exactly to appraise, but easy to recognise in 
the everyday action of these very substances. The Ger- 
man, for instance, sometimes describes tea as more stimu- 
lant and anti-narcotic than coffee ; the Frenchman as a 
medicine, or an appetiser. The Englishman would pro- 



EFFECTS ON DIFFERENT PERSONS. 357 

bably demur to both these conclusions ; and consider tea, 
which he habitually uses, as far less stimulating, and less 
preventive of sleep, than coffee ; or if he found coffee 
more nourishing, would often recognise a partial expla- 
nation in the much larger quantity of milk which many 
habitually consume therewith. Individual peculiarities 
again, exceed, and often simulate, those produced by 
habit. Some persons must toss to and fro for a whole 
wakeful night if they are deprived of their accustomed 
tea an hour or so before bed-time. In some the quantity 
of urine is increased by tea, in others by coffee.* Some 
habitually check a diarrhoea with coffee, while others (and 
this is much more common) can provoke a similar flux by 
the same agent. Of course the quality of the tea or 
coffee, the roasting of the latter, or the strength of their pre- 
parations — cceteris paribus, the decoction being generally 
stronger in respect to these actions than the infusion — 
may affect each of these results. But it may also be po- 
sitively asserted that they are often altogether independ- 
ent of any such casual and obvious circumstances. 

* A not unfrequent effect of tea in some persons is to retain, and collect, 
as it were, in the system, a large quantity of water ; which, in three or fonr 
hours, begins to pass off very rapidly as a copious secretion of limpid 
urine, so watery as to irritate the bladder to very frequent micturition. 
The skin, in such cases, seems to share in this retention of water, being 
cold, pale, and almost dry from want of sensible perspiration. It is hardly 
necessary to add that the various meteorological circumstances of these 
cases quite forbid the view of any increase in the water of exspiration 
sufficient to counterpoise the watery deficit of the skin and urine during 
even a part of the period observed. On the other hand, it is a matter of far 
more universal experience that in warm, or even temperate, weather, tea 
cools those who drink it ; and apparently by the ordinary process of a gentle 
perspiration. 

A A 3 



3S8 TEA AND COFFEE. 

It is to common facts like these, vague and trivial as 
they at present seem, that we must look for a check or 
confirmation of even such admirable and exact researches 
as those of Boecker, And when we all know what a 
change a cup of good tea or coffee can effect for most of 
us on a raw cold morning; or (better evidence, because 
larger) how such liquids have gradually almost displaced, 
under the guidance'of instinct and experience, the spiri- 
tuous liquors formerly consumed under great exposure to 
cold (as in the cases of railway guards and Arctic voyagers, 
both of whom, by the way, profess to find coffee the 
better of the two in this respect) ; we shall do well, know- 
ing what we do of the production of heat, and the general 
import of our sensations of comfort, to doubt whether 
some figures or facts have not slipped out of joint in these 
praiseworthy but complex inquiries. 

Further, I would say, look to the experiments them- 
selves The urine which is examined comprises accurately 
enough the day's secretion ; subject, that is, to none but 
such chemical errors as were probably reduced to a mini- 
mum, or even excluded altogether. But the carbonic acid 
of a large number of hours, nightly, is not taken ; some- 
times though these very hours presumably follow that of 
the ingestion of the substance under inquiry. And lastly, 
what is a much more serious objection to the whole re- 
sults, a very large and important fraction of the egesta is, 
of necessity, always obtained by calculation. In other 
words, while the exspiratory carbonic acid is estimated from 
observations necessarily imperfect and interrupted, the 
total constituents of the cutaneous and pulmonary exha- 



INEXACTNESS OF EXPERIMENTS. 359 

lations are calculated, as a mere subtrahend of the other 
egesta, from the bodily weight — to speak accurately, are 
guessed, but never observed at all. 

It is to this flaw that I would specially call attention ; 
the more so, that to do so may spare us some allusions to 
it elsewhere. So long as experiments of this kind are 
obliged to omit all direct and trustworthy measurements 
of the cutaneous exhalations in general, and of the watery 
and organic constituents which are discharged with the 
carbonic acid of expiration, we cannot accord to them more 
than an analogical, or probable, value. Exactness, indeed, 
must necessarily be wanting. The watery vapour, for 
example, evolved by the skin and lungs is contingently re- 
ferrible to various sources ; to the water of the external 
atmosphere, to the water of the tissues, and to the com- 
bustion of their hydrogen. To whichever of these sources 
it is really due, its calculated amount affords no indica- 
tion; nay, more, might remain absolutely the same, no 
matter how much had entered and left the organism in 
the same time, if only (what is no impossible supposition) 
the total quantities taken in, and given out, by ail channels 
closely approached each other. 

And a similar proposition holds good, though in a less 
marked degree, respecting the carbonic acid and urea 
which are more directly estimated in these researches. 
The variable and important proportions of carbonic acid 
which the skin and the urine together eliminate, afford a 
cloak quite ample enough to cover the small differences 
detected ; even while our ignorance of the amount of this 
non-exspiratory carbonic acid in Man forbids us all re- 

A A 4 



360 TEA AND COFFEE. 

liance on the mere analogies furnished by those animals, of 
very different size and organisation, in whom it has been 
directly estimated. And a like uncertainty exists with 
respect to that waste and decomposition of the azotised 
tissues which the urea and uric acid of the urine tolerably 
represent. There are good grounds for supposing that 
the ammonia exhaled from the skin * and lungs, and con- 
tained in the faeces — perhaps even the ammonia of the 
urine, as well as its nitric acid — sometimes constitute a 
total, the variation of which is quite large enough to de- 
mand an accurate estimate, before we can accept, in their 
minutest details, any moderate variations in the daily ex- 
cretion of urea f by the kidneys only. 

* Compare the remarks on the ammonia of the skin and excretions 
generally, at pp. 7 and 15, with the important observations of my colleagues, 
Dr. G-oolden and Dr. Bernays, alluded to in the following chapter. 

f In the passage of the above remarks through the press, I am enabled, 
by the publication of Dr. E. Smith's able and ingenious researches as to 
the effect of these and other agents on the respiration, to convert some of 
these surmises into positive assertions, based upon facts such as seem 
beyond the reach of disproof. He has shown, for example, that tea, added 
to a food otherwise unvarying — and not (as he shrewdly points out was 
sometimes done by Boecker) substituted by a more potent nourishment, 
milk — increases the quantity of urea; and that, too, in a quantity which 
the careful details of his experiments entitle us to suppose no mere trans- 
formation of the nitrogenous alkaloid of the tea can explain. He also 
shows that tea, coffee, and cocoa, all increase the exspiration of carbonic 
acid ; and in a degree in which the above order of succession represents 
a decreasing energy. 

It is hardly necessary to say that it is not my purpose to claim, for Dr. 
Smith's numerous researches, the position of perfect and unquestionable 
accuracy in all their details ; or for his conclusions, that of being without 
exception irrefragably based upon the facts he has adduced. And it is 
evident from what is said above, that I should be little disposed to accept 



COCOA AND CHOCOLATE. 361 

Cocoa and Chocolate. — The various preparations of the 
West-Indian Cocoa-nut (Theobroma cacao) which form 
the cocoa and chocolate of commerce, constitute articles of 
food having characters very different from that of the tea 
and coffee which they often substitute in the diet of those 
who habitually consume them. 

The nut in its husk, which latter constitutes about 12 
per cent, of the whole mass, is rarely made use of. But 
the husk is said to be ground up in some of the coarser 
cocoas ; and is even stated to yield, alone, a decoction 
having sufficient of the flavour and nourishing properties of 
cocoa to repay a scanty importation into Ireland for this 
purpose. 

The shelled nut or bean is stated by Johnstone* to 
have the following composition. 



any sudden and temporary fluctuations of exspiratory carbonic acid as 
proving increase or decrease in the whole process of bodily waste : or the 
mere fact, that the ingestion of starch caused no immediate increase of 
exspiratory carbonic acid, as a proof that it did not increase any part of 
the vital interchange ; by itself becoming, in some form or other, and after 
whatever delay during digestion or assimilation, subservient to metamor- 
phosis. But Dr. Smith's researches, even if hereafter qualified in any such 
respects, will still have given us some facts of striking novelty and value ; 
as well as some information respecting the conditions of such experiments 
as those made by Boecker, Lehmann, and himself, which must greatly aid 
all future inquirers. The class of substances termed " Arresters of Meta- 
morphosis " was, even prior to his researches, one which, on the general 
physiological reasons above hinted at, has long seemed to me unworthy of 
acceptance. But the direct disproof Dr. E. Smith has now given to some 
of the chief statements on which it was based, will probably be more 
widely appreciated, than all the indirect facts and arguments which have 
hitherto been at the disposal of the Physiologist. 
* Chemistry of Common Life, vol. i. p. 227. 



362 



COCOA AND CHOCOLATE. 



Shelled Bean. 




The same dried. 




Water . 


5 


Fat 


51 


Starch, gum 


22 


Sugar or starch 


22 


Gluten 


20 


Casein or gluten 


21 


Oil (cocoa-butter) 


51 


Ash 


4 


Theobromine * . 


2 


Theobromine . 


2 




100 




100 



In all but the quantity of theobromine (which, by the 
way, is stated to be an estimate, as though it were not de- 
duced by any direct analysis), the above proportions cor- 
respond so closely with those given by Lampadius f, as to 
suggest their being derived from the analyses of the latter 
chemist. 

The above composition affords a tolerable clue to the 
ingredients of the several preparations of the nut in 
common use. The heat to which it is exposed developes 
an aroma, ascribable to a volatile oil, the chief source of 
which is no doubt the buttery or oily constituent of the 
original mass. In this respect the " torrefaction " under- 
gone by cocoa offers analogies to the more energetic roast- 
ing applied to coffee. The subsequent processes of manu- 
facture vary according to their object: sometimes being a 
minute division or trituration of the mass into a condition 
w^hich better incorporates its oily and other ingredients, 
and thus aids its further preparation or cookery ; some- 
times admixing it, while in this finely divided state, with 



* This alkaloid is distinguished from Thein chiefly by its more azotised 
composition, and smaller solubility (Caife in =C s H 5 X 2 2 ; Throbroniine = 
C 9 H 5 N 3 2 ; corresponding with 29 and 36 per cent, of nitrogen respectively. 

t Dr. TJre's "Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and 31ines," vol. i. 
p. 680. 



THEIR DIETETIC EFFECTS. 363 

starch and sugar, or with ingredients which, like the vanilla 
of chocolate, add their independent aromatic and stimu- 
lating qualities to the whole. 

The dietetic effects of the various kinds of cocoa and 
chocolate thus manufactured may be summed up as 
differing chiefly in the degree in which the above processes 
of purification and incorporation are rendered available 
by subsequent cookery. The infusion of the husk, for 
example, is little more than a weak aromatic and stimu- 
lant, (akin to, but far transcended by) tea and coffee. That 
decoction of the " cocoa-nibs " which, after long boiling, is 
decanted off these crude masses, carries more of the 
starchy and oily ingredients, as well as of the theobromine ; 
and is therefore more nourishing, as well as a more potent 
stimulus. Even here, however, the aromatic and bitter so 
far predominates, that this light preparation is well borne 
by many persons whose stomachs resent the ordinary cocoas 
and chocolates. In these latter, in which more or less of the 
solids of the mass — often, indeed, the whole of them — 
are drunk in a state of suspension, together with a variable 
quantity of milk, so large an amount of nourishment is 
conveyed into the system, and so small by comparison is 
the influence exercised on the nervous system, that it is 
difficult to determine any close affinity between their action 
and that of tea and coffee ; or to recognise any comfort 
or stimulation as produced by them, beyond what their 
highly nourishing ingredients will abundantly suffice to 
explain. They are, indeed, nourishing foods, rather than 
stimulating drinks. As such, they are often excellent 
substitutes for tea and coffee in persons whose constitu- 



364 TEA AXD COFFEE. 

tions resent as injurious the nervous effects of these stimu- 
lants. They are also well adapted to nations and climates 
where a smaller quantity of solid aliment is generally 
sufficient. On the other hand, their properties suggest 
what experience shows to be necessary precautions as to 
their use by delicate persons. Many who use them to 
replace tea or coffee, are obliged to select the lightest 
preparations ; all others overburdening the digestive organs 
with superfluous materials for absorption. And in many 
instances it would be found that unless the solid food were 
correspondingly diminished, chocolate would be too rich 
and heavy an article of diet ; so much so, that its habitual 
and excessive use is accused of producing peculiar cuta- 
neous eruptions, and hepatic derangements. Against the 
latter danger the Spaniards are said by Ford to adopt the 
precaution of drinking a large tumbler of cold water, im- 
mediately after taking the cup of thick chocolate which 
often forms their breakfast. 



365 



CHAP. XI. 

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

Alcoholic Drinks. — Their Eelation to Food. — Their Classes. — Wine. — Its 
Typical Varieties. — Their Composition : as influenced by various Cir- 
cumstances. — Bordeaux and Burgundy. — Sherry, Madeira, Port. — Effer- 
vescing Wines. — Spirits. — Beers or Ales. — Physiological Effects of 
Alcoholic Drinks. — Pathological Effects. — Action of Alcohol on the 
Functions. — On the Metamorphosis of the Body. — Researches of Boecker 
and others. — Objections to their Conclusions ; to their Facts. — Elimina- 
tion of Alcohol. — Its Influence on Vicarious Secretion. — Its Action on 
the Organism. — Its Influence on Bodily Temperature. — On Bodily, 
Mental Exertion. — Its Indirect Value. — Its Eeaction. — Its Influence on 
Longevity, in Individuals, Populations. — Teetotalism. — Influence of 
Alcohol on Digestion ; on Ingestion. — Eisks of Sudden Abstinence. 

The possession of a large alcoholic ingredient is the cha- 
racteristic of a group of liquids, which exercise a profound 
and important influence on the whole function of nutri- 
tion ; and which, as a matter of statistics, enter largely 
into the habitual ingesta of the civilised world. 

How far, however, these liquids are really food in any 
more intrinsic sense than that of being habitually con- 
sumed in company with substances more strictly ali- 
mentary, is a question which we may remit to the follow- 
ing statements to decide. How far, indeed, the selection 
of their alcoholic ingredient as the type of their compo- 
sition is accurate, either chemically or physiologically, 
may equally be questioned. On the whole, we shall do 



366 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS, 

better to regard their alcohol as their main ingredient 
only; and as forming, both in respect of their compo- 
sition and effects, but one extreme of their character. It 
is certainly their more poisonous constituent. But it is 
doubtfully their most useful one. And it ranges, through 
many substances which we know of, and through many 
more we are obliged almost to ignore, to others which are 
essentially nutritive. Hence we shall not be far wrong if 
we approach the study of these alcoholic drinks with the 
impression, that they may be best classified by their well- 
known effects, as seen in both individuals and nations ; 
and are thus something between food and poison ; and, 
therefore, akin to physic. Pleasant physic, per] 
But assuredly not pleasant without a purpose on the par" 
of beneficent Nature. For every gratification of this kind, 
however it may demand the habitual rule and restraint of 
higher motives, is yet in itself a direct incentive or reward 
to the action which evokes it. 

The three great classes of alcoholic drinks (spirits, win 3 3 
and beers or ales) are distinguished by certain broad generic 
characters, although some of their varieties almost m< 
into each other. Spirits, for example, are characterised 
by being the products of distillation; which process collects. 
from a dilute and complex alcoholic liquid, a volatile 
mixture containing a larger proportion of alcohol, with a 
smaller admixture of the volatile matters heretofore a— - 
elated with it, and none at all of the fixed ones. Wii ^ 
again, are the juice of the grape, prepared by a sponta- 
neous fermentation. Beers are the liquids produced by 
& fermentation, excited artificially in an infusion of the 



THEIR PROPORTION OF ALCOHOL. 367 

saccharised " malt " into which certain starchy grains are 
converted by heat and moisture. But the artificial sweet- 
ening and flavouring of spirits makes them u liqueurs" 
and doubtless endows them with some scanty germs of a 
fermentative process. And, to say nothing of the fraudu- 
lent adulterations which disgrace the commerce in wine 
as well as in every other necessary of life, the avowed 
sweetening of some nines, and the no less unconcealed 
addition of brandy to others, converts them also into the 
same hybrid class of u liqueurs*' sometimes into mere 
varieties of dilute spirits. Beers, again, range from those 
admirable tonics, the bitter ales now brewed (which in 
their effects almost emulate many of the advantages of 
wines), to a noteworthy ingredient of vinegar on the one 
hand : or to a heavy, sweet, luscious liquid on the other. 
And the alcoholic constituent of the three classes shows 
equal fluctuations. We may, it is true, estimate it as 
averaging 50 to 75 parts per cent, for the spirits: 10 to 
20 for the wines : and from 6 to 9 for the beers and ales. 
But the wide extremes of different qualities and specimens 
of each of these three classes, deprive such an estimate of 
all practical value. The strongest ales, for example, show 
more alcohol than do the weakest wines : the strongest* 
wines than the weakest spirits. And it must never be 
forgotten, that the influence of these liquids, whether we 
judge that influence by its intoxicative power, or by its 
more remote and recondite constitutional effects, is by 
no means that of their alcohol only. On the contrary, 
their benefits are, as a rule, inversely as their alcoholic 
ingredient : or, in other words, the mischief they can and 



3G8 ALCOHOLIC DKIXKS. * 

do effect is, other things being equal, rather some high 
power of their fluctuating proportion of alcohol, than any 
mere arithmetical proportion of this constituent. 

Wine.-^- Among the three classes, wine claims precedence. 
And among wines, we may take as types t€ red " and 
"white" wine; good old words, which one reads with respect 
and regret in classic English literature despite their having 
been for years somewhat restricted in their meaning by the 
fraud of our tradesmen, and the ignorance of our lawgivers. 
Eed and white wine, such as kind Providence offers to the 
industry of civilised Man everywhere throughout a wide 
district, which ranges from the Atlantic on the West, to 
Palestine (the very home of the grape, and the place where 
its use was hallowed by the Son of Man) on the East. 
Eed and white wine, neither the costly results of extra- 
ordinary soil and culture on the one hand, nor the ill- 
grown, ill-made, ill-kept stuff which torments even the 
" dura ilia mcssorum" on the other. But the sound fresh 
small wines which, in ordinary years, can be grown in any 
reasonable quantity along a line of latitude extending from 
Spain to Hungary, both inclusive ; and which, thanks to 
one of our greatest modern statesmen, bid fair to resume 
•the ground they have lost during the last century in 
England.* 



* The arguments in defence of a system which had for many y 
rendered wine unknown to the mass of Englishmen, would scarcely deserve 
to be raked up from the fitting obscurity they have now found, were it 
not that they strikingly illustrate that want of acquaintance with the 
and laws of human Life, which renders some of our most successful poli- 
tical controversialists perfectly unfit to legislate for the physical welfare 
of their fellow-citizens. To say that wine was an inferior or unwholesome 



COMPOSITION OF WINES. 



369 



The composition of such wines may be formulated as 
follows : — 





Bed. 


White. 


Alcohol (by volume) 


. 120 


110 


Free acid 


. 6 


9 


(Tannic acid 


. 0-8 


0*3) 


^Ether . 


traces (0*025 ?) 


(0-025?) 


Colouring matter 


. — 


— 


Sugar 


. 3 


4 


Extractive 


. 30 


25 


"Water 


. 841 


852 



1000 



1000 



This estimate, inexact but not arbitrary, is quite com- 
patible with the fact established by the numerous analyses 
it sums up ; namely, that every one of the above con- 
stituents is subject to such wide variations, as to have 

drink in this climate ; that the English workman would never drink wine ; 
that the foreign peasant would never grow it for him ; that wine was a 
luxury, and therefore to be taxed to the verge of prohibition : — such were 
the assertions which, for years, those who should have been the instructors 
of the public substituted for more legitimate arguments in defence of our 
strange laws against one of the first necessaries of civilised existence. 
Hardy predictions deserve no contradiction until those who make them 
can show some claims to be considered prophets. But how men who had 
lived during the wars of the first Napoleon, and ought to have known the 
importance of wine in his Commissariat, and even its share in some of his 
victories — how they could call wine a luxury only, and appraise it on so- 
phistical grounds which, carried to their logical conclusions, would entitle 
us to regard potatoes, water, and a single fig-leaf as the only necessaries 
of human Life, it is really difficult to understand. Certainly the experience 
which teaches some persons that they can dispense with such aids to Nu- 
trition, or the more doubtful considerations which league others in hos- 
tility against all alcoholic drinks, no way countervail, either the general 
usefulness of wine, or its special value as a less poisonous and brutalising 
agent than the ardent spirits which, in most countries of Europe, replace 
its insufficient consumption. 

B B 



370 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

but an approximate value. The variety of grape used ; 
the climate and soil in which it is grown; and every detail 
of the preparation and preservation of the wine from its 
juice; all modify the result in respect to each of the in- 
gredients above noticed. 

For example, the effect of a clear dry climate, with a 
bright powerful sunlight, on the grape itself, is well shown 
by a contrast of the rich strong wines of Spain, Italy, or 
Syria, with the thinner wines of Northern Grermany and 
Holland ; in which latter country the ripening of the 
grape to an adequate size and sweetness is in some sea- 
sons a matter of great uncertainty. The injurious effects 
of too rich an animal manure, and too moist a soil, are 
equally well known ; as are also the exhaustion or de- 
terioration of soils which, though formerly the homes of 
generous wines, are now quite incapable of supplying them. 
In like manner, the concentration of the mast by evapo- 
ration; the access of air during fermentation, and the 
changes which accompany the later stages of this proc 
the precipitation of albumen, tannic acid, and bitartrate of 
potash ; the decrease of sugar ; the increase of alcohol ; and 
its subsequent loss by evaporation: — all tell upon the com- 
position of the wine to what is often a remarkable degree. 
An old wine will therefore show less alcohol than a new 
one of the same kind ; often also much less sugar, some- 
times none at all. An old red wine generally deposits a 
crust of tannic acid and bitartrate of potash : and only 
retains a certain shade of colour, which scarcely exceeds 
that of an old white wine; and which is derived (according 
to Mulder) from the same modification of tannic acid. 



BORDEAUX AKD BURGUJNDY WINES. 



371 



the sparingly soluble apothema of Liebig. Lastly, it is 
reasonable to conclude that age confers other benefits be- 
sides those attributable to the above chemical changes ; and 
especially, that it imparts to the whole liquid a homoge- 
neous character which, as in the case even of a factitious 
and adulterated wine, tends to deprive it of part of its 
injurious effects. 

Few better illustrations could be adduced of the con- 
joint effect of some of the above circumstances, under but 
moderate variations of climate, culture, and preparation, 
than a contrast* of the finer red wines of the Bordeaux 
and Burgundy districts (the Grironde and Cote d'Or respec- 
tively) : — 





Bordelais 


Bourgogne 




{by Faure). (by Delarue). 


Alcohol 


. 9-188 


13-480 


Tannin 


. -112 


•079 


Bitartrate of potash 


. -160 


•057 


Tartrate of the peroxide of iron 


. -089 


•006 


Other salts 


. -025 


•065 


Colouring matter . 


•041 


•078 


Water 


. 90-085 


86-235 




100-000 


100-000 



Popular opinion in France regards Bordeaux as not 
only less heady or intoxicating, but (even apart from this 
character) more wholesome than Burgundy. It is interest- 
ing to find some explanation of this very wide experience 
in the larger ingredients of tannin (l± to 1); of salts 
(nearly 2 to 1); and especially of iron (about 15 to 1), 
contained in the Bordeaux wines. As regards all of these, 



Revue des Deux 3Iondes, Juillet 15, 1860. 

B B 2 



372 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

we may perhaps trace the rule, that it is the natural but 
multifarious admixture of ingredients in wine which makes 
this liquid generally so much less poisonous, and more 
medicinal, than dilute alcohol ; even while this very cha- 
racter may perhaps demand for it changes akin to a diges- 
tive process in the liver : and hence that the due subor- 
dination of its alcohol may well make any particular wine 
more useful. And in respect to the tartrate of iron of the 
above analysis, it is important to observe that its absolute 
quantity — from 6 to 7 grains in a pint — amounts to a full 
medicinal dose in the quantity of wine often consumed 
daily by those who habitually drink it. 

In name, at least, Port and Sherry rank as among the 
" wines ; " of which liquids they have till recently been the 
sole representatives with the mass of our nation. But it is 
doubtful whether, as a matter either of chemistry or of 
dietetics, they fairly deserve this title. Sherry, for ex- 
ample, is understood to be composed of various wines, so 
mixed and incorporated as to suit the prevailing t 
of the British consumer; wines, some of which are 
artificially strengthened by evaporation, while others are 
coloured (innocently enough) by burnt sugar. So far as 
the preparation of Madeira implies any similar mixture or 
reinforcement, it, too, must be ranked less among the 
wines than among the u liqueurs ; " of which, indeed, it de- 
serves, on every ground, to be regarded as the chief. The 
addition of brandy to wine is of course a rank adulteration ; 
which, physically, may be mitigated by the incorporation 
brought about in course of time, as a slow continuous 
fermentation of the whole mixture ; but morally, remains 



EFFEKVESCENT WINES — SPIRITS. 373 

always indefensible. As regards Port-wine, the exact com- 
position and sources of this orthodox beverage are still a 
profound mystery to scientific chemists ; even in the case 
of that moderate proportion of the liquids bearing this 
name, which is believed to be really imported from any 
wine-growing country. Assuming it to be vinous, we may 
estimate its alcohol as tolerably corresponding with that of 
Sherry and Madeira, in amounting to a proportion nearly 
double (20 parts per cent.) that of the ordinary natural 
wines as above estimated. 

The effervescing wines are distinguished, not only by 
the carbonic acid they evolve, but also by the large propor- 
tion of sugar they contain. About 5 per cent., for ex- 
ample, seems to be the proportion of this ingredient in 
good Champagne. Their alcohol usually exceeds that of 
the common or natural wines; amounting to about 14 per 
cent. In various sweet non-effervescent wines, little used 
at present, though apparently far more popular two or 
three centuries ago, the per-centage of sugar rises to 20 or 
even 25. 

The distilled spirits, ranging from 50 to 77 per cent, of 
alcohol (Gin being the weakest, Eum the strongest), are 
otherwise distinguished by peculiarities of taste and smell ; 
due to ingredients which are derived from their respective 
sources, but are often scarcely determinable by a quantita- 
tive analysis. In the " liqueurs " usually so termed, a large 
proportion of sugar (as in Noyau, Maraschino, Curapoa) 
is often present as an admixture to the alcoholic basis. 
In Noyau, the flavour communicated by bitter Almonds is 
of course associated with a proportionate amount of the 

BB 3 



374 ALCOHOLIC DRIXKS. 

energetic poison thus added ; although the quantity is 
usually too small to exercise any independent effect. 

The beers or ales, ranging in alcohol from 3 to 13 per 
cent., and in sugar from 2 to 25 per cent., with a small 
(2 per cent.) proportion of free acid, are also distinguish- 
able by those other ingredients (especially their bitters) 
which make up their complex " extractive" 

In the physiological effects of these various liquids, the 
proportion of alcohol plays a prominent, but by no means 
exclusive, part. Hence, though we may trace something 
like a gradation of activity in passing down that alcoholic 
scale which conducts from the strongest distilled spirit to 
the weakest beer, we find some differences which are 
specific to the three classes of spirits, wines, and beers ; as 
well as others which apparently depend, in great degree, on 
the relative proportions of the above collateral ingredients. 
The quantity of sugar, for instance, is evidently of im- 
portance; and, in general, greatly increases the noxious 
effects of the liquid in which it is largely present, acting in 
this respect as no mere admixture of sugar with the food 
would do. The aethers and the tannic acid, as well as the 
tartaric acid and the tartrates, of wine, are also doubtless 
of importance ; and seem to confer upon it that rich and 
multifarious composition by which this great medicine 
so far transcends all that we sometimes attempt in our 
pharmaceutical combinations of many drugs. Lastly, there 
is the clearest evidence that another quality — which, for 
want of a better word, we may call naturalness — of wine 
is still more influential : and that this character {m the 
exact appreciation of which the chemist must at present 



THEIR PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS. 375 

be content to rank below the connoisseur, and the con- 
noisseur in his turn below the sensations which follow a 
moderate dose, or the constitutional effects experienced 
by the habitual consumer) is the only one which guaran- 
tees that proper combination of stimulant, tonic, and 
alterative effects distinctive of the action of wine. 

But although it is by the physiological effects of these 
liquids that we ought especially to decide their respective 
value, both as aids to food in health, and as remedies in 
disease ; it is precisely in respect of these effects that we 
should probably find most diversity of opinion to prevail. 
The large experience afforded by the human race during 
many thousand years is often rendered equivocal by the 
collateral circumstances under which that experience has 
been obtained. In few details, again, would any number 
of persons be found to differ more widely from each other 
more than in the effects of alcohol on their diverse consti- 
tutions. And Chemistry, Physiology, nay, even Politics 
and Ethics all press in, with evidence often conflicting, to 
disturb and complicate the question, important as it is 
to the destiny both of states and individuals : — " What is 
the benefit, or the mischief; in one word, the value; of 
this or that alcoholic drink ? " 

After all, it is to the large facts afforded by common 
experience that we may best look for evidence upon very 
complex and obscure subjects. And the rule of proceed- 
ing from that which is known, to what which is unknown, 
is, in this case, no less agreeable to philosophy, than con- 
venient for purposes of disputation. 

That " wine makes glad the heart of man," not even 

B B 4 



376 ALCOHOLIC DKINKS. 

the rules of modern exegesis will enable us to deny. 
And that, in quantities equally moderate as those to 
which this proportion must virtually be restricted, it so 
far substitutes and replaces food, as to permit life and 
health to subsist for an apparently indefinite period, on 
a food less rich or copious than would otherwise be re- 
quisite, is scarcely more questionable. 

The immediate and casual results of its excessive use, 
as a matter of ordinary observation, might be described in 
the words of our greatest of dramatists ; from whose works, 
indeed, it would be easy to collate * an exact summary of 
all its more important physiological effects : such as its in- 
fluence on the brain ; on the limbs ; on the sexual, urinary, 
and cutaneous functions. And that the several changes thus 
produced throughout the organism by an alcoholic ex 
together make up a general condition capable of being 
summarised as a downright poisoning, is a fact signifi- 
cantly expressed by that genteel metonymy which, un- 
wisely slurring over the cause of this state, and confining 
attention to the effect it deuotes, describes a person as 
" intoxicated," whom our ancestors would have more ac- 
curately though bluntly stigmatised as " drunk." 

The frequent repetition and perpetuation of this poison- 
ing, even in less marked degrees, often produces various 
conditions which our existing Patholoo-v is tain to regard 
as diseases, merging into the apparently similar conditions 
which are witnessed in temperate persons, perhaps as the 
results of other poisons. And though it is doubtful 

* Of such passages, that in M Macbeth," (Act ii. Scene 3) Is one of the 
most characteristic. 



EFFECTS OJST THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 377 

whether there be any disease whatever which, directly or 
indirectly, alcoholic excess cannot invite, provoke, or 
aggravate; it is certain that there are some which it 
specially and largely produces, as an effective cause. Of 
these delirium tremens, nephritis, and cirrhosis of the liver, 
afford the most frequent and best attested examples. 

In passing on to notice those more exact and scientific 
observations, by which it has been attempted to trace into 
their details these well-known facts concerning the phy- 
siological action of alcohol, we need only allude to the 
several degrees and kinds of that immediate or direct 
effect which it produces on the nervous system. Pleasur- 
able excitement, increased mental cheerfulness and activity, 
and (quite compatible with this stage) a gradually increas- 
ing bewilderment of sensation and of motion, usher in a 
torpor, ending in downright coma. Nor can it be denied 
that other phenomena — namely, those of inorganic life — 
exemplify an analogous inversion (so to speak), as the 
result of alcohol. Thus the improved digestion often 
brought about by a small and dilute dose is contrasted by 
the nausea, vomiting, and complete suspension of this 
function, which result from a large one ; the turgidity and 
excitement of the whole vascular system in the first stage 
of drunkenness, by the pallid bloodlessness, and the feeble 
cardiac and arterial impulses, of the last stage. In like 
manner, the furtherance of sensation and of motion, which 
are at first produced by alcohol, and which finally merge into 
an annihilation of both, evidently do so through an inter- 
mediate state, in which it is easy to recognise that it is 
perception and not sensation, co-ordination of movement, 



S78 ALCOHOLIC DRIXKS. 

and not muscular contraction, which are in fault. The 
" enemy " which the drunkard " puts into his mouth/* 
does, indeed, exactly fulfil the Shaksperian simile, by acting 
in the first instance, so chiefly, if not exclusively, on his 
nervous centres, as literally to " steal away his brains.** 

The more profound nutritional effects of alcohol have of 
late years been generally summed up by a doctrine, against 
which the author has long felt it necessary to protest as a 
hasty, if not incorrect, generalisation of facts, such as them- 
selves, above all others connected with the physiology of 
alimentation, demand a careful sifting, and an accurate 
judgment. Ever since the brilliant views of Liebig on 
this point were first propounded, evidence has seemed to 
be gradually accumulating in confirmation of them. Yier- 
ordt, Boecker, and others, have indeed supported them by 
researches, the care and industry displayed in which are 
beyond all praise. And hence it has cine to be almost a 
received doctrine of the schools — a kind of idohvm tl<> 
— that alcohol economizes waste, and aids Nutrition, by 
diminishing both the products, and the process, of meta- 
morphosis in the tissues : among which products the urea 
and carbonic acid in which carbon and niti ogen are ulti- 
mately dismissed from the system of course figure as the 
most measurable and important. 

The statements of these observers substantially assert, 
that under the use of moderate quantities of wine and 
other alcoholic liquids, the daily evacuations of carbonic 
acid and urea of a healthy male adult, are reduced by 
about one-eighth and one-fourth of their respective pre- 
vious quantities. It would further seem, that not only 



DIFFICULTIES OF EXPERIMENTS. 379 

do the three classes of alcoholic drinks act differently ; 
but that even the red and white wines may presumably be 
contrasted in the circumstance, that the influence in limit- 
ing metamorphosis which is common to both, is soon 
followed, in the case of the white wines, by such an in- 
crease of waste, as renders these alterative in the strictest 
sense of this word. 

In demurring to this generalisation, however, I must 
not be understood to question the facts. And while, in 
such a momentous question, there is need of great caution 
in appraising these facts themselves, it should not be for- 
gotten that the very difficulties which oppose such obser- 
vations, are a testimony to the skill and pains of these 
observers. 

For example, a person eating at will may be easily con- 
ceived to receive and use less food when moderately 
stimulated by alcohol. His previous habits, again, will be 
likely so greatly to modify the results of the experiment, 
that we can well imagine any man but an habitual Tee- 
totaller fretting all his tissues under an unaccustomed 
abstinence from alcohol ; and returning, with the return 
to his habitual ration of this stimulant, to a more moderate 
bodily and mental expenditure ; — in other words, to a 
diminished wear and tear of his whole system. And not 
even a savant could be quite trusted to gauge the degree 
in which that mental and bodily irritation which abstinence, 
and moderate indulgence, in alcohol might thus excite, 
and relieve, respectively, had probably affected the chemi- 
cal results ultimately obtained. 

The greater objection to such experiments is, however, 



380 ALCOHOLIC DKIXXS. 

that danger of idiosyncrasies which some of these observers 
themselves especially suggest. And waiting, with them, 
for numerous studies of this exact kind, we may in the 
mean time fairly compare the narrow, though exact, facts 
they have communicated with the more trustworthy, if 
less detailed, information, which is derivable from a larger 
experience. 

Now, could any physician, judging with that delicacy of 
observation which the practice of Medicine (and especially, 
the art of diagnosis) teaches, suppose that tea; coffee, and 
alcohol, might be grouped together ; that their main in- 
fluence on Nutrition was alike, much more identical ; that 
their effect on the tissues was analogous? Assuredly not. 
And yet this is substantially what we are asked to do. 
We are told of each in succession, that it economises the 
bodily substance : checks and diminishes that waste, of 
which carbonic acid and urea are the exponents and the 
results. If this then were their value, it would seem that 
the habitual drinkers of alcohol, tea, and of coffee are all 
taking the same path ; that health, economy, and longe- 
vity are the goals which all will finally arrive at, and 
by almost identical tracks. 

But before tracing this objection into detail, let me 
repeat, in even stronger terms, what I advanced before. 
Supposing metamorphosis to be limited in exactly the 
way assumed, how should we call this economy ? Meta- 
morphosis is so far identical with Life, as to be at any rate 
the coefficient of all healthy vital action. And it has yet 
to be shown how its diminution can improve or economise 
life and health ; how, in short, a traveller would get more 



KELATION OF LIFE AND WASTE. 381 

economically to his journey's end by merely taking a 
railway-ticket which announced a lower fare than that 
payable for conveyance to his destination. To suppose 
that a man has only so much metamorphosis to effect in a 
lifetime, and therefore must perpetually strive to moderate 
this waste, is a low view of the mystery of Life, quite un- 
warranted by anything we know of the subject. As well 
ignore cleanliness in cookery, upon the old nautical plea, 
that every man must eat a peck of dirt before he dies ; or 
adopt Balzac's ghastly legend of the u Peau cle chagrin." 
Commercially such a view does, indeed, seem neat enough. 
But even so, it might fairly be rejoined (and that on the 
strength of analogies which have a far higher import, and 
sanction) that Man is a trader, and not a stagnant holder, 
of Life or any other gift ; and that as the healthy waste of 
the tissues which represent the servants and carriers of his 
profitable trade must generally correspond with the amount, 
and the profits, of his transactions, it would be the very 
worst economy to aim at increasing these by a mere re- 
duction in the numbers and activity of his staff. 

And, as respects the alleged diminution of the daily 
excretions of carbonic acid and urea under the moderate 
habitual use of alcoholic drink, it is probable that the 
observations hitherto made are amenable to other errors 
than those producible by the idiosyncrasies or habits of a 
few subjects of experiment. A single blot in the intervals 
selected for the analyses, a single unexpected* peculiarity 

* This very explanation has lately been adduced by Dr. Edward Smith 
to invalidate some of the experiments hitherto most relied on. He finds 
that " alcohol alone, and each member of the class of alcohols, has its own 



382 ALCOHOLIC DRIXKS. 

in the time or the fluctuations of such an effect, might 
well convert a real increase into an apparent decrease, or 
produce these small differences which are all that seem to 
have been observed. 

Further, even if we assume that these ordinary products 
of bodily waste are really diminished by alcohol, it will 
by no means follow that the process itself has undergone 

degree, and even kind of action." In his valuable researches on the in- 
fluence of the alcoholic liquids upon the exhalation of carbonic acid, it 
was especially his object to avoid the difficulties which had opposed accu- 
racy in the experiments of his predecessors : in whose inquiries the sub- 
stance was taken in doses unusually large or frequent, with various kinds 
of food, at different periods of the day, and with varying degrees of 
tion ; so that it was difficult to dissociate the influence of oth 
and even yet more difficult to obtain a .standard to compare the results. 
To avoid these difficulties he the moraL 

for the inquiry, when the system was very sensitive, and no influence of 
food existed; and when, during perfect reet, all interferences were rem 
and the effect of the alcohol isolated. This method also allowed of a 
correct standard of comparison; the amount vf chemical cL re the 

fluid was taken. 

His chief results were as follows: — Alcohol diluted with water incn 
the amount of carbonic acid evolved, in a very moderaf Rum had 

a similar but more decided action. "Wines commonly caused an incon- 
siderable increase. Brandy and Gin generally lessened it : as did w. 
also, though with a manifest tendency to return to. or exceed, the ori„ 
quantity. Old ale and Stout always caused a sustained increase for a 
two hours. 

Of course the observations thus briefly noticed by no means exhaust this 
difficult and complex question. Nor is it quite impossible that the longer 
observations of Boecker, extending over many days, and the shorter ob- 
servations of Dr. Smith, restricted to the two hours before breakfast, may 
be found to afford an explanation of some of the discrepancies in their 
results ; a temporary increase not being incompatible with a direct or in- 
direct decrease of the carbonic acid exhaled during a day or a ser: 
days. But Dr. Smith's elaborate researches have at any rate opened up a 
new and important series of tacts, as well as afforded some indispensable 
means for future and larger inquiries. 



THEIR EFFECTS OX THE SKIX. 383 

a simple and corresponding diminution. Apart from the 
argument that, on all analogy, such a decrease would be a 
step backward if not downward, a regress towards a smaller 
degree of Life, if not a lapse in the direction of disease ; 
observation suggests (at any rate supports) a doubt 
whether the process may not be so far changed, as that 
its products may undergo a substitution by others allied 
to them, its own amount perhaps remaining unaffected. 
For example, few of the greater phenomena of Xutrition 
are more changed by alcohol than is the function of the 
skin. The unnatural flush, or the deep ruddy hue of the 
drunkard's face during a debauch, is scarcely more cha- 
racteristic than is the more permanent colour of all the 
exposed parts of his integuments. And we may un- 
questionably observe an analogous, if smaller, effect 
of this kind, as the ordinary result of a moderate use 
of fermented liquor ; so much so, that among persons 
equally exposed to the air, the pallor of the Teetotaller 
will generally distinguish him at a glance from the ruddier 
consumer of beer or wine. Xor is it a mere increase of 
colour which the skin thus shows; but its heightened vas- 
cularity is associated with a great increase of its secretion : 
an increase which is traceable, in marked cases, by an 
increased exhalation both of water, and of those volatile 
fatty acids which constitute so large and important a pro- 
portion of the cutaneous transpiration. 

In moderate drinkers, it may be fairly supposed that 
this effect is partly due to an elimination of the poison by 
this channel; and that, just as the ethereal and allied con- 
stituents of fermented liquids can be plainly recognised by 



384 * ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

their smell, which shows them to be habitually dismissed 
from the body in the pulmonary exhalation ; and others 
just as notoriously find their exit by an increased flow of 
urine ; so various ingredients of alcoholic drinks pass out 
by the skin, stimulating its local action, and increasing 
its various secretions in their transit. But it is also 
possible that such effects are partially due to an arrest of 
that metamorphosis which furnishes the normal secretions 
of this organ ; to an imperfect oxidation, which substitutes 
for the ordinary products of combustion (carbonic acid and 
water) matters representing intermediate stages of the 
process. 

According to such a view, the skin, surcharged with the 
materials of its function, and unable to accomplish their 
complete change and removal, permits or effects their 
exhalation in a state of oxidation far short of that which 
they ought to possess. This condition of the cutaneous 
egesta, as well as its cause, seem analogous to that excre- 
tion of fatty acids (p. 267) which takes place in an animal 
fed for a time exclusively on fat. 

Nor are indications wanting of far more important dis- 
turbances which, if producible by alcohol in the chemistry 
of Nutrition, would deprive all moderate variations in the 
daily excretions of carbonic acid and urea of the signifi- 
cance hitherto assigned them. The formation of water, 
which is always deduced, rather than verified by obser- 
vation, represents a kind of combustion such as might 
(and in many diseased processes undoubtedly does) replace 
or substitute the formation of carbonic acid, in a degree 
such as a moment's consideration would show to be capable 



UREA ESCAPING RECOGNITION. 385 

of permitting the greatest variations/ both in the degree and 
kind of the waste it represents, and in the equivalents of 
heat evolved by a given loss of substance. Hence a mode- 
rate diminution of carbonic acid proves little as to the 
waste of the tissues, unless it be quite certain that there is 
no corresponding increase of water of combustion. In like 
manner, even urea seems to have its counterparts, which 
may render its own decrease a mere subterfuge (so to 
speak) of the chemistry of excretion. Among these it is 
scarcely necessary to specify the carbonate of ammonia ; 
which is suggested by many facts of health and disease to 
be a ready and simple modification of urea, capable of ex- 
halation from the whole surface of the body, and therefore 
of escaping all but the most delicate and specific search.* 
While, whatever doubts still hang over the exhalation of 
pure nitrogen from the body, it may be conjectured that 
the interesting observation of Dr. Bence Jones as to the 



* Careful observations entitle me to state that the moderate and 
beneficial use of alcohol sometimes largely increases the ammoniacal con- 
stituent of the fieces ; and apparently, in a lesser degree, that of the skin 
and lungs. 

[Since writing the above,, the suggestion made here and elsewhere (p. 4) 
as to the directness of the relation between ammonia and urea in the 
cutaneous and other secretions, and the possible secretion of urea by other 
organs than the kidneys, to undergo a speedy (and perhaps spontaneous) 
conversion into the carbonate of the volatile alkali, has received a striking 
confirmation from some valuable observations by my colleagues, Dr. Goolden 
and Dr. Bernays, relatively to the action of the Turkish bath. A fine 
healthy young man, inured to the bath by his avocation as one of the 
attendants who shampoo the visitors, thoroughly cleansed the surface of his 
whole body with soap, and plentifully washed this away with warm water. 
The sweat which poured from his skin under the influence of the heated 
air was carefully collected by Dr. Goolden, who directed and watched the 

C C 



386 ALCOHOLIC DRIXKS. 

formation of nitric acid in the system^ affords a clue 
to another serious source of uncertainty as regards all 
deductions founded merely on scanty variations, or small 
fractions, of the urea excreted daily. Lastly, it is quite 
possible that an increased secretion of mucus from the 
alimentary and respiratory tracts, as well as of the ordinary 
fluid and solid excretions of the skin, might conceal such 
an increased evolution of azotized ingredients as could 
cover a small diminution of daily urea, 

From all these considerations we may perhaps infer, 
with tolerable certainty, some important conclusions re- 
specting the action of alcoholic liquids on the organism in 
general ; conclusions which may be conveniently men- 
tioned here, and which are in some degree independent of 
the circumstances to be next alluded to, much as these 
tend to illustrate and confirm them. (1.) It is evident 

-whole experiment. Analysed by Dr. Bernays. this sweat revealed the fol- 
lowing composition : — 

Water ..... 992 S 

Urea . . . . .IS 

Chloride of sodium . . . .42 

Remaining ash . . . .1*2 

1000 



It is not for me to anticipate the line of induction Dr. Goolden has so well 
begun. But, apart from the not improbable contingency that the urea thus 
excreted may represent a larger amount, part of its equivalent ammonia 
being lost from the experiment as thus conducted, — it is evident that the 
amount of urea presumably got rid of by a single bath, during which two 
pints of sweat are often poured out, might well form a large and important 
relief to the kidneys, and to the organism at large. For example, assum- 
ing the estimates of Vogel and Xeubauer, it would follow that from ^ 
to ^ (=tV t0 A^ °f tne ^hole daily urea of some patients, might th 
eliminated through the skin.] 






THEIE PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION. 387 

that alcohol acts, first and most, on the nervous system ; 
through which it chiefly influences the tissues in general. 
(2.) Not only is there no proof whatever of its " assimila- 
tion" in the strict sense of the word, — as implying a liken- 
ing or conversion of alcohol or its constituents into the 
substance of the body, — but even that combustion which 
it has often been supposed capable of ministering to, 
seems to be contradicted (certainly remains unconfirmed) 
by accurate inquiry ; and, so far as regards those slender 
facts on which it may be regarded as resting, is certainly 
susceptible of other explanations, themselves more com- 
patible with the predominant or exclusive influence of 
this drug on the nervous tissues. (3.) Though the rough 
and unaided evidence of the senses as to the elimination of 
alcohol by the skin, lungs, and kidneys, has not yet been 
followed into its exact details of duration and quantity by 
the incontrovertible evidence of exact chemical analyses, 
yet it may be fairly presumed that a process of removal 
of the drug, without much change as regards some of its 
ingredients, really obtains. A partial elimination of this 
kind must indeed be regarded as quite established by the 
evidence already at our disposal. And it is evident that a 
large (perhaps even a total) elimination remains not quite 
impossible ; a proposition which is, in some sense, a 
corollary of that which denies its assimilation.* 

* Recent researches (Ludger Lallemand, Maurice Perrin, et J. L. 
P. Duroy: Du Bole de V Alcbol et des Ancssthesiques dans V Organisme, 
Becherches Experimentales, 8vo. Paris, 1860) have now given exactly the 
information thus vaguely hinted at as wanting to decide the action of 
alcohol. The careful experiments of the above observers may be summed 
up as establishing: (1.) That alcohol, after its ingestion, undergoes a 

c c 2 



388 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

Eeverting to larger facts, it can scarcely be questioned* 
that even a moderate daily ingestion of alcohol diminishes 
the capacity of the body for resisting extremes of tem- 
perature. That, other things being equal, healthy men 
are cooler in Tropical climates, and warmer in Arctic ones, 
under a total abstinence from alcohol, is a proposition 
which has now been abundantly established by numerous 
excellent authorities amongst travellers and scientific ob- 
servers. And while the normal relations of the organism 
to temperature constitute the maintenance of an uniform 
bodily heat an exquisite test of health, — and, indeed, 
imply the perfection of animal Life and organisation, — so 
those simple laws of combustion and evaporation that are 
at least the instruments through which the body exerts its 
opposite powers of warming and cooling itself up and down 
to a fixed temperature, show that alcohol is, in the main, a 

special accumulation in the tissues of the liver and the brain ; two 01 
of which the predominant selection of one is mainly determined by its 
relation to the channel by which the drug enters the system : — the liver 
being the first to receive the alcoholised blood which comes from the intes- 
tines; the brain bearing the brunt of alcohol injected into the veins, or 
inhaled into the pulmonary capillaries. (2.) That the kidneys, skin, and 
lungs are the channels of its exit from the body unchanged. (3.) That the 
duration of this process of elimination, though varying to some extent 
with the quantity of alcohol taken into the body, may be estimated, in the 
case of an ordinary dose of wine, as removing the whole of the drug from 
the system in about 24 to 36 hours. The minute and delicate chemical 
details by which these results have been obtained, will doubtless receive a 
criticism tar more practical, and therefore more satisfactory, than can be 
based upon a mere study of the above Essay, without a careful repetition 
of its experiments. But in the absence, hitherto, of any such repetition 
and confirmation of these experiments, it is only right to say that they 
seem to defy disproof, as well as to establish the conclusions which have 
been based upon them. 






THEIR INFLUENCE ON MUSCULAR EXERTIOK 389 

source of nutritional derangement; and that its use is 
incompatible with the perfection of Nutrition. 

Exertion, again, in all its more active forms, whether 
this activity find vent in a short but excessive muscular 
effort, or in a more sustained but less violent action, is 
just as certainly disfavoured by alcohol. Careful observa- 
tion leaves little doubt that a moderate dose of beer or 
wine would in most cases at once diminish the maximum 
weight which a healthy person could lift, to something 
below his Teetotal standard. While, even as respects more 
sustained exertion, the avoidance of feverishness, and the 
capacity of prolonged muscular effort, are gladly secured 
by many who habitually drink alcoholic liquid*, by a 
temporary abstinence from it under such circumstances. 
In like manner it is not too much to say that mental 
acuteness, accuracy of perception, and delicacy of the senses,, 
are all so far opposed by alcohol, as that the maximum,, 
efforts of each are incompatible with the ingestion of any 
moderate quantity of fermented liquid. Indeed, there is 
scarcely any calling which demands skilful and exact effort 
of mind or body, or which requires the balanced exercise 
of many faculties, that does not illustrate this rule. The 
mathematician, the gambler, the metaphysician, the maitre 
cVarrnes, the billiard-player, the author, the artist, the 
physician, would, if they could analyse their experience 
aright, generally concur in the statement that, even though 

* The Chamois-hunters of the Austrian and Bavarian Alps well illustrate 
this remark ; a remark, however, only amounting to a reiteration of one of 
those rules of athletic training, the value of which rests on the experience 
of some thousands of years. 

c c 3 



390 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

they may find a bottle of wine, convivially speaking, not a 
drop too much ; and a more moderate potation quite com- 
patible with the exercise of all their faculties ; yet that a 
single glass will often suffice to take (so to speak) the edge 
off both mind and body, and to reduce their capacity to 
something below what is relatively their perfection of 
work.* 

On the other hand, however, it is necessary to remember 
how often the whole question must practically be ap- 
proached from a totally different aspect ; how often alcohol 
constitutes, not the single feather which distracts the sleepy 
savage, but the bed of down which restores the exhausted 
man. It may disturb a balance exquisitely adjusted; and 
yet, in the main, counterpoise a scale heavily laden with 
disadvantages. If alcohol exhilarates ; imparts comfort 
and energy ; counteracts fatigue, hunger, and unrest ; then 
it does in effect increase the capacity for work of those 
who take it under such circumstances ; and affords, in so 
far, a direct benefit and advantage. 

It is, however, alleged that not only does it thus solicit 
and bribe (as it were) the individual to undue and hurtful 
exertion, but that its advantages are dearly bought by that 
stage of reaction or depression which follows the excite- 
ment it produces : in short, that it invites to suicidal ex- 
cesses of work, and stores up the mischiefs which it defers. 

The first of these two statements has a great degree of 
truth, as well as much more plausibility. But, on the 

* The influence of alcohol on imaginative effort is quite another matter ; 
though even this influence, if analysed aright, and traced to its end. would 
perhaps support no very dissimilar conclusion. 



THEIR INFLUENCE ON HEALTH. 391 

whole, it is difficult to avoid expressing a deliberate 
opinion, that neither of them really applies to the mo- 
derate use of alcohol. The Teetotaller would doubtless 
be justified in asserting, that the toil which requires the 
habitual use of large quantities of alcohol ought never to 
be done at all; and that, to allege that the day's work 
can only be prepared for by doses of wine or spirits, is 
tantamount to a confession that the work is utterly unfit 
for the existing health and strength of the workman. 
And it is matter of only too common observation, that the 
hilarity produced by an excess of alcohol overnight, is 
often followed by great indisposition and depression the 
next day. But to restore by a glass or two of wine those 
sensations of comfort and cheerfulness, which have been 
somewhat worn during a long day's work, is a procedure 
which, though it may often be indirectly necessary to 
similar industry on the morrow, seems quite compatible 
with the continuance of good health. And, in like man- 
ner, the man who feels worse on the morrow of a social 
dinner, which has been enlivened by a moderate quantity 
of good wine, may thank himself, or his host, for a reaction 
which proves some error in either the quantity or quality 
of his compotations. From good wine, in moderate quan- 
tity, there is no reaction whatever. 

Id respect to longevity, the exact influence of alcoholic 
liquids in moderation has yet to be made out ; both as 
regards individuals, and populations. The practice of 
Physic sufficiently teaches us that, as above suggested, 
there are many persons whose health is bettered, and life 
protracted, by its discreet use. On the other hand, it 

c c 4 



392 ALCOHOLIC DRIXKS. 

cannot be doubted that, apart from the excesses which 
notoriously poison and kill those who indulge in them, 
alcoholic drinks, taken in quantities far below what are 
requisite immediately to affect the brain, often sap the 
foundations of health ; and constitute the cause (or, at any 
rate, the occasion) of indigestion and gout. In most 
cases, however, we observe no sensible effect of either kind ; 
or find (if we analyse our observations) that the operancy 
of alcohol is rendered doubtful by other conditions — 
such as hereditary constitution, circumstances and habits, 
— which ordinarily transcend and obscure its own action. 
With fresh air, moderate exercise of mind and body, the 
heritage of a healthy frame, and plain nutritious food, the 
hardest and sourest of ale permits Old Parr to attain the 
extraordinary age of \52 ; and ev^n the Whisky of the 
Highland shepherd, or the " Schnape" of the German 
peasant, seems comparatively innocuoua 

As applied to masses, the question is not less obscure : 
and demands, on the whole, an equally oracular answer. 
It is excess which is fatal; and this is unfortunate!] 
common, that one can hardly doubt the sudden abolition 
of the use of all alcoholic beverages would at once occasion 
a general increase of the average duration of Life in a 
country like our own. But such a supposition, however 
difficult to realise, suggests other contingencies. Ethical as 
well as Medical, which cannot be ignored. Certainly, to 
judge by the only Teetotal populations we are acquainted 
with, tobacco, opium, and the grossest of sexual vices, have 
done scarcely less towards the shortening of average life, 
and the degeneration and decrease of the population, among 






THEIR INFLUENCE ON HEALTH. 393 

the Mahometan races, than the drunkenness which was 
so accurately painted by Hogarth, and which still claims 
so large a number of English victims yearly. And, to 
judge by appearances, there must have been far more and 
healthier old age (using these words in their literal sense) 
among the boon companions of London society fifty years 
back, than could even now be found among the temperate 
and highly cultivated inhabitants of some of the healthiest 
cities of Italy. 

Nor can it be denied that the Practice of Medicine 
supplies us with a question on which many a Physician 
is compelled to doubt, though he would be delighted 
to answer it in the affirmative. That Teetotalism is 
compatible with health, it needs no elaborate facts to 
establish ; any more than we need search the records of 
history, or the narratives of travellers, to find numbers 
of persons habitually practising such abstinence from 
alcohol, with none but the best results. But if we take 
the customary life of those constituting the masses of our 
inhabitants of towns, we shall find reason to wait for ex- 
perience before we assume that this statement will extend 
to our population at large. And in respect to experience, 
it is singular how few healthy Teetotallers are to be met 
with in our ordinary inhabitants of cities. Glancing back 
over the many years during which this question has been 
forced upon the author by his professional duties, he may 
estimate that he has sedulously examined not less than 
from 50,000 to 70,000 persons, including many thousands 
in perfect health. Wishing, and even expecting, to find it 
otherwise, he is obliged to confess that he has hitherto met 



394 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

with but very few perfectly healthy middle-aged persons, 
successfully pursuing any arduous metropolitan calling 
under Teetotal habits. On the other hand, he has known 
many total abstainers, whose apparently sound constitu- 
tions have given way with unusual and frightful rapidity, 
when attacked by casual sickness ; and many more who, 
with the strongest resolution and inclination to abstain 
from alcohol, have been obliged to resume its moderate 
use, from reasons no less valid and imperious than those 
which, 1800 years ago, induced an inspired Saint to pre- 
scribe it for a Teetotal Bishop. 

It may, however, be suspected that any apparent rarity 
of the coincidence of perfect health, and complete Teeto- 
talism, is less of an argument against the claims of this 
doctrine than at first sight it seems to be. Certainly 
many of the other habits of our urban populations are, 
as it were, leagued against such an innovation as absti- 
nence from alcohol. Bad food ; bad cookery ; foul air ; in- 
sufficient exercise ; excessive mental and bodily toil ; all 
combine to render a stimulus of this kind both Lett 
superfluous, and more harmless, than it would other 
be : and at the same time suggest, that the imperfect 
health often seen as the concomitant of Teetotalism should 
be referred to these well-known agencies of disease, rather 
than to any less direct and obvious cause like the want of 
a particular drug. In like manner, that the constitution 
of a reformed drunkard often foils at a pinch, is a defect 
which ought in fairness to be charged to his previous 
habits ; and not to that salutarv change in these habits. 



THEIR INFLUENCE ON DIGESTION. 395 

but for which he would in many cases have lost both 
health and life long before. 

Even as respects Digestion, the influence of alcohol is a 
complex problem to solve. The chemistry of artificial 
digestion * conclusively indicates, that the mere solution of 
the gastric contents can undergo nothing but disturbance, 
| or even opposition, from alcohol ; the injurious effect of 
which is probably not altogether suspended by any but 
the most extreme dilution ; and is certainly heightened 
by its combination with those saccharine and fermenting 
ingredients which are largely present in most alcoholic 
beverages ; and which tend to set up, in the gastric con- 
tents, a decomposition akin to their own. But the oc- 
casional experience, that alcohol assists Digestion, is not 
absolutely incompatible with these chemical effects. For 
not only may its influence on the mind, or on secretion, 
outweigh that more direct injury to Digestion above spoken 
of; but even these effects themselves may (and often do) 
exert a salutary reaction on the system, and through it on 
the digestive canal ; obviating — perhaps oftener defer- 
ring and accumulating — some of the direct consequences 
of excess. That good eating requires good drinking, has 
in all ages of the world been admitted : and to select the 
most invidious illustrations of this fact, the gigantic meals 
which are sometimes ended by the slow soaking in dilute 
alcohol of almost all the food taken — so as to check alike 
Digestion and decomposition, and enable the intestinal 
canal to void its contents after a very scanty absorption 
of their nutritious principles into the blood-vessels — would 

* Compare p. 124. 



396 ALCOHOLIC DfilNEB. 

scarcely be compatible with the health sometimes associated 
with them, save by an effect of this kind. 

The removal of such a questionable safeguard against 
excess, is therefore one of the results of Teetotalism. And 
though it is alleged that the habitual consumption of a 
much larger quantity and variety of food by Teetotallers 
is an instinctive compensation for the want of all alco- 
holic stimulant; yet, recollecting the natural tendency 
of Mankind to forego moderation in their pleasures, just 
in proportion as the number of these pleasures becomes 
restricted, it may be questioned whether this increased 
ingestion of food may not have a different source: whether, 
in short, most men are not likely to pay the more attention 
to the solid luxuries of the table, when these are the only 
enjoyments of the kind which they can command Far 
from the Teetotaller being subjected t<> the need of an 
unusually rich and copious Dietary, personal observation 
and experience would suggest that he may claim a 
higher ground for the doctrine he advocates. It is true 
that the insufficient ingestion, and still more insufficient 
Digestion of food, is one of the commonest and v 
results of alcoholic excess : by which the organism is thus 
deprived of food, at the same time that it is prostrated by 
the copious introduction of an active poison : and hence 
that, contrasted with habitual excess of this kind, Teeto- 
talism provokes the cravings of a healthy appetite, and 
implies a larger consumption of food. But it is quite 
otherwise if complete abstinence from alcohol be com- 
pared with another grade of indulgence in it. Looking 
to that large class of persons whose habitual quantity of 



RISKS OF THEIR SUDDEN WITHDRAWAL. 397 

food is regulated only by instinct and taste, and contrast- 
ing the total abstainer from fermented liquids with the 
moderate consumer of them, the former must be regarded 
as the more economical eater of the two. For he digests 
so much more thoroughly and completely what he does 
take, that he requires less (rather than more) food than a 
person who, in circumstances otherwise similar, indulges 
moderately in some alcoholic beverage. While he certainly 
has lost that safeguard which alcohol in some sense affords 
against those varieties of dyspepsia forming the more im- 
mediate results of over-eating. 

The risks of a sudden change from habits of indulgence 
in alcohol, to a total abstinence from it, cannot be fitly con- 
sidered in a mere outline of the principles of Diet ; but are 
related to a variety of circumstances, more strictly medical. 
The degree of such indulgence, the state of the patient's 
health, and a variety of equally obvious details, so mate- 
rially influence the consideration of every such case, that 
no rule can be laid down for the procedure to be adopted. 
Perhaps, however, one may hazard the general remark, 
that, save where alcohol is enabling a worn-out constitu- 
tion to bear up against some of the lesions it has itself 
provoked, an immediate and complete abstinence is both 
safer and easier than is generally supposed. Certainly, for 
the majority of persons addicted to excess, such a proce- 
dure is, both on medical and moral grounds, the only route 
to amendment. And any one forsaking such habits need 
not fear to run the gauntlet of those symptoms to which 
proper medical treatment will always reduce the sufferings 
that notoriously pursue the first steps of the reformed 



398 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

drunkard on the rough path of repentance. But for those 
who find that health is preserved or benefited by moderate 
indulgence in some dilute or natural form of alcoholic 
drink, no rules can be offered : unless it be (mindful of 
the significant Italian epitaph*) to let well alone; or, if 
higher (even though mistaken) motives suggest a change 
of habits in respect to this good servant, but bad master, 
of the mind and body, not to carry out such a change 
rashly. For them, the modification of habits has not 
that vast predominance of benefit which it has for the 
drunkard ; but is a change which, on every ground, must 
be made with prudence, and followed by careful observa- 
tion. And the application of a few such hints upon diet 
and habits as most educated Physicians could afford, 
would often prevent injury to the Teetotaller's health, and 
save his doctrine from what is, in many instances, an un- 
deserved condemnation at the hands of somewhat prejudiced 
observers. Perhaps, too, a similarly careful observation 
would often suggest, as well as control, the same change ; 
and would thus at once cure the dyspeptics who owe 
many of their symptoms to that moderate quantity of 
alcohol which they erroneously suppose is indispensable 
to their health. It is not very rare to find persons whose 
delicate organs of Digestion resent almost every fermented 
liquid to such a degree, that they are perpetually teased 
and fretted by a source of irritation, which eludes all 
discovery until some casualty teaches them that — to vary 
the meaning of the French idiom — " ils out le vin 
onauvaw" no matter how little they take of it. 

* M Staya bene. Per stare nieglio, sto qui." 



399 



CHAP. XII. 

COOKERY. 

Importance of Cookery. — Comparison of Kaw and Cooked Flesh. — Di- 
gestive Import of the Changes wrought by Cookery. — Summary of its 
Advantages. — Process of roasting Meat. — Process of boiling Meat. — 
Varieties of Boiling; their Objects, and Processes. — French Pot-au-feu 
as one of these Varieties. — Baking. — Stewing. — Soups. — Their Ob- 
jects, and corresponding Varieties. — Spanish Pucker o. — Cookery of 
Flesh as affected by its Decomposition. — Economy of Cookery. 

The subject of Cookery is one which ought not to be al- 
together overlooked in treating of Food. For not only do 
the operations summed up under this term greatly modify 
the various constituents of the food, but they are, in the 
main, so necessary and universal, that, however possible it 
might be to maintain existence on the raw materials fur- 
nished by the two kingdoms of Nature, we cannot conceive 
of alimentation being successfully thus conducted, in the 
case of either individuals or societies. Food, indeed, im- 
plies cooking. And far from cookery being the matter of 
mere luxury, or even of comfort, which many affect to 
consider it, it would be difficult to point out any subject 
more intimately connected with national health and wealth 
than that which regulates the absolute and relative value, to 
every citizen, of the first necessaries of Life. And truly, 



400 COOKERY. 

of all countries of the civilised world, there is none in 
which a diffusion of the principles of cookery is more 
needed than our own. For want of some ideas of this 
kind, the perfection of meat, the profusion of fuel, and 
even the extraordinary special skill of our cooks, enforce 
on the affluent a monotonous diet of far too rich and heavy 
a quality. While among the poorer classes, hitherto little 
accustomed to flesh-meat, the ignorance still prevalent as 
to the best and cheapest modes of preparing it for use, 
recall, if not justify, the old adage ; which, while devoutly 
acknowledging the gift of food, broadly stigmatises cooks 
(by a neat antithesis) as missionaries from the Enemy of 
Mankind.* 

The claims of cookery, in a scientific point of view, have 
yet to be fully established. Waiting such information — 
the acquisition of which will doubtless entitle this modest 
handmaiden of life and health to take her proper rank 
among the various Arts and Sciences, somewhere be- 
tween Chemistry and the Fine Arts — it is difficult to offer 
more than a general statement of what cookery in general 
may be presumed to effect ; and of what its chief pro- 
cesses may be observed to bring about, in the substai 
submitted to their action. Rightly appreciated, tl 
processes suggest the principles of cookery : the objects it 

* The last half of the proverb. M God sends meat, but the devil sends 
cooks," probably has a special reference to that favourite Eng s 9 — a 
piece of meat, coal-black without, leathery within — for which popular suj 
stition might well find a parallel only in the products of those torrefa< 
offices assigned to Satan in the "Mysteries" of the Middle Aires. At 
rate it may remind ns of the toil, waste, ill-temper, ill-health, and intem- 
perance, of which had cookery is so obviously and universally a ca - 
among the poorer classes. 



CONTRAST OF RAW AND COOKED MEAT. 401 

should have, and the tests by which its successes must be 
estimated. 

No better illustration can be found of some of the chief 
claims of cookery, than in the case of animal food or 
meat. "We will suppose, for example, a piece of raw flesh 
to be compared with a similar piece properly cooked : — 
how, we will not for the moment inquire. After contrasting 
the external appearances of the two, we may follow them, 
by the aid of dissection, to the very bounds of unassisted 
touch and sight; and then invoke chemistry and the 
microscope to carry this scrutiny into its minuter details. 
The following would probably be the conclusions thus 
arrived at. 

The tissues of the raw meat retain much of that di- 
versity specific to them during life. Its numerous struc- 
tures (each with its own substance and arrangement, as 
well as appearance and composition), are only mixed and 
broken down into each other by putrefaction ; a condition 
which may fairly be alleged in some degree to precede that 
interchange of their proper nutritional liquids, which pre- 
pares them for their more complete decomposition. In 
the cooked meat, on the other hand, not only is putrefac- 
tion delayed, suspended, and even, in its slighter degrees, 
removed for a while ; but there is an intimate admixture 
and combination uf the juices of the meat, giving it a 
homogeneousness or uniformity of flavour which — itself 
the simple result of combining into one complex admixture 
many tastes and odours — tends to render all its particles 
equally tasteful and equally nutritious. And the physical 
changes of the solids of the meat are no less marked and 

D D 



402 COOKEEY. 

important. Many of its constituents are dissolved, and 
mixed in this state with the rich liquids of the original 
substance ; many more are prepared for their future so- 
lution by the digestive secretions. The tough insoluble 
partitions of areolar tissue between the meat-fibres are 
first converted into gelatine, and are then more or less 
dissolved and diffused among the surrounding structures. 
The dense membranes of the fat-vesicles are thinned, 
softened, and even burst ; so as to allow the escape of their 
valuable contents, only assimilable when thus exposed and 
finely divided. And even these details of cookery, in- 
fluential as they thus are, probably yield in importance 
to two other elements of this process; elements, however, 
which can only be vaguely enunciated in the present state 
of our knowledge. 

Firstly, it cannot be doubted that the process of cookery 

includes chemical changes — downright metamorpho« 

which are, in the main, great improvements of the food. 
To take no more recondite test, the disappearance of the 
colour of the blood contained in meat is proof of conver- 
sions of this kind. Whatever their exaet nature, their 
usefulness is undeniable. 

Secondly, I venture to surmise that the scientific import 
of cookery must be sought chiefly in a direction to which 
the physiology of Digestion points the way. Whatever the 
precise shares taken in the processes of cookery by solution 
on the one hand, or by conversion on the other, both ap- 
pear to yield in magnitude and importance to another set 
of changes ; which, for practical purposes, may be regarded 
as lvinor midway between the two. The method of ob- 






CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 403 

servation above specified does indeed conclusively show 
that their united influence accounts for but a part of the 
change accomplished by cookery. And though I have as 
yet no direct proof sufficiently tested by repetition to 
justify the publication of its details, yet those conclusions 
to the same effect which may be indirectly arrived at, 
amount to something more than mere conjecture. Con- 
trasting the effect of heat at a high temperature, as in 
cookery, with that enormous and disproportionate increase 
of putrefaction producible by a low one ; contrasting the 
coagulation produced by heat on albumen, with the ap- 
pearances seen in cooked meat ; and especially, remember- 
ing the sedulousness with which all the culinary operations 
exclude oxygen ; — we may at any rate find reason for be- 
lieving that the changes of cookery transcend solution, 
even while they fall short of decomposition, in many im- 
portant respects. I should even be disposed to conjecture 
that they constitute a step towards a process of true 
hydration ; in which some of the tissues of the uncooked 
food combine with the water of their moisture, or even 
mutually interchange the water of their composition : a 
process of hydration analogous, both in its nature and office, 
to that more complete and specific change of the same kind, 
which it is the function of the stomach to accomplish by 
means of the gastric juice. 

The flavours developed by cooking are by no means un- 
important. Most of them depend upon changes of com- 
position, the exact nature of which remains unknown. 
Others belong to a process which, while it partially car- 
bonizes or chars the substance roasted, appears to com- 

D D 2 



404 COOKERY. 

municate savoury characters, by causing the evolution of 
various products (empyreumatic and otherwise), which are 
tenaciously retained by the less volatile and more carbo- 
nized materials. Hence a prolongation of the process 
first modifies, and then destroys, the flavours gained by 
its earlier stages. 

To these general advantages of cookery may be added 
some others, more specific to certain kinds of food. The 
same process of extraction, for example, which dissolves 
from meat some of its best constituents in the form of 
broth, and even obtains from bones no • contemptible 
elements of food, is often useful, in the case of vegetables, 
by removing soluble ingredients more or less hurtful, 
sometimes downright poisonous. And, apart from all such 
use of water as a solvent, even heat can in some insta 
effect an analogous purification. 

Thus, then, we may sum up the general advantages ob- 
tained by cookery. It confers a diversity of tastes or 
flavours; and thus permits a wholesome increase in the 
diversity of ingredients originally contained in the food, as 
shown by the chemistry of its raw materials. Besides ful- 
filling these instinctive wants of mankind, it purifies, pie- 
serves, and economizes food ; and presents it to the agency 
of Digestion in a form which, by facilitating this proc 98, 
allows Nutrition to be conducted at a smaller expenditure 
of alimentary materials. Doubtless, it thus allows many 
climates like our own to he more largely peopled, and it- 
collective inhabitants to be fed with less aggregate toil 
than would otherwise be necessary. And in this sense we 
can scarcely demur to the statement, that, by deducting 






PROCESS OF BOASTING. 405 

from the total quantity of labour which would otherwise 
be requisite for life, it indirectly adds to the national 
wealth. 

A few of its chief operations may now be glanced at. 

Roasting. — In the operation of roasting meat, the heat 
applied to the outside of the mass soon converts its more 
superficial portions into a dense, hard, brownish mass ; con- 
sisting chiefly of the various tissues originally present here, 
which entangle in their interstices a quantity of albumen 
formerly present, in their nutritional juice, but now coa- 
gulated by heat. This compact crust, which, by its sub- 
sequent contraction, forcibly compresses the matters be- 
neath, is of essential service ; not only in moderating the 
heat thenceforth transmitted through it to the deeper 
portions of the mass, but also in confining (and as it 
were sealing up) its numerous liquid and volatile consti- 
tuents, which would otherwise be soon dissipated in the 
form of gases or vapours. The heat which now penetrates 
the mass, probably diffuses the juices of its various tissues 
at a high pressure throughout its whole texture ; dissol- 
ving its osmazome or extractive and much of its gelatine, 
melting its fats, and imparting that comparative uniformity 
of consistence, as well as of properties, already alluded 
to. Doubtless some of its albumen is also dissolved in 
this way : though by far the greater part of this consti- 
tuent seems to be thrown down as a kind of loose soft 
precipitate ; which, to all appearance, becomes intimately 
entangled with the solid fibres of the areolar tissue, en- 
closing them as a kind of nucleus within its own deposit. 
The colouring matter of the blood is generally more or less 

D D 3 



406 COOKERY. 

dissolved in that admixture of the various liquids of the 
original tissues which constitutes the " gravy." * The nu- 
merous empyreumatic products, which are developed chiefly 
in the more heated exterior of the mass, next add the 
savoury taste and odour, and the deepened colour, cha- 
racteristic of this mode of cookery. The act of " basting," 
or (i braising," perhaps helps to moderate the heat of the 
inside of the mass by evaporation. But it is much more 
influential by its perpetually renewing — or rather complet- 
ing — that outside varnish (if we may use such a compa- 
rison) of the mass, which is as perpetually undergoing 
dissipation, and even decomposition, by the fierce heat 
applied here. Of course if the process be unduly pro- 
tracted, it will not only burn the hard outside shell into a 
coaly substance, but will also drive off man}* of the volatile 
constituents of the exterior; and will thu> convert the in- 
terior into a dense, tough, whitish, contracted mass, far too 
insoluble for easy digestion. On the other hand, if the 
roasting is too rapid, and the heat too intense, the same char- 
ring of the outside is of course attended with a diminution 
of all the advantages of cooking in the inside or central 
portion; which is revealed at table in that "bien saignant" 
condition, popularly supposed by our French allies to be the 
English taste in respect to the national dish of " Rosbif" 
Boiling is an equivocal term which ought, for the sake 
of intelligibility and accuracy, to be either expunged from 

* It has been supposed that the red colour exhibited by this liquid in 
the interior of a mass of roast meat, proves that the blood has not o 
lated ; and therefore, that the heat of 154° Fahr., which coagulates albu- 
men, has not been obtained. But the above seems the true explanation. 



VARIETIES OF BOILING. 407 

the vocabulary of cookery, or at any rate never employed 
without some such qualification as may give it an exact 
import. For example, there are at least three operations 
of this kind in the cookery of meat ; each absolutely dis- 
tinct from the other, not only in the object sought for, but 
in the method adopted, and in the results actually at- 
tained. In boiling meat with a view solely to the alimen- 
tary virtues of the resulting solid mass, the object should 
be to approach as closely as possible to the cookery of roast- 
ing. Indeed, in whichever way either may be applied, 
the two processes of boiling and roasting necessarily have 
something in common. Both are accompanied by a coa- 
gulation of albumen, a solution of extractive, and a solu- 
tion (or rather formation) of gelatin, in the mass itself. 
But they differ from each other, chiefly in the circumstances, 
that the lower temperature applied in boiling developes no 
empyreumatic substances ; while the water which conveys 
the heat to the mass always extracts from it a certain pro- 
portion of its soluble constituents. Hence to diminish 
this process of extraction — which is itself pro tanto an 
impoverishment of the meat — forms a special object of this 
variety of boiling. And it may be effected by suddenly 
plunging the meat into water at a temperature of 212° 
Fahr. ; a temperature which, by coagulating the albumen of 
its outermost layer, produces a crust sufficiently impervious 
to enclose and retain some of the more volatile consti- 
tuents of its interior. 

On the other hand, when it is chiefly the broth or 
aqueous solution of the meat which is intended to be used 
as food — in other words, when it is not the w cooking ' or 

dd 4 



408 COOKERY. 

preparation, but the complete extraction, of the solid mass 
which is sought for — the extractive process must be 
favoured, not only by increasing the surface of mutual 
contact between the water and the meat, but by delaying 
and avoiding, so far as is possible, the coagulation of the 
albumen, and by prolonging the period of the solvent action. 
Hence the meat should be very finely divided (minced, 
or even pounded) before infusion ; and the temperature 
of the water then raised very slowly, to a degree of heat 
far short of ordinary ebullition, and maintained there for 
a long time. Of course the proportion of meat must vary 
with its kind, and even its quality, as well as with the de- 
sired strength of the broth. But, as a rule, no after 
dilution should be practised : a mixture of broth and 
water being a very different tiling from a homogen- 
liquid containing exactly the same proportion of water. 
And in all but the hottest weather of this climate, it is 
both economical and advantageous to soak the minced or 
pounded meat from four to eight hours in the water, 
before exposing it to heat at all. The best test of the 
success of the process is of course the homely one of tasting 
the product. The next best is the utter insipidity of the 
shreds and fibres which form the residue — literally a 
caput mortuitm — of the experiment when it is properly 
carried out. 

Midway between these two extremes stands a variety of 
boiling, which is one main element of that admirable 
French institution — the "pot an feu;* 1 and which, for 
its great saving of skill, care, fuel, and food, is perhaps the 
climax of cookery, viewed from its most important (that is. 



VAKIETIES OF BOILING. 409 

its economical) aspect. To roast aright, demands a 
large fire, a good cook, perpetual basting, and (last, not 
least) an excellent meat ; a not inconsiderable proportion 
of the volatile elements of which are inevitably lost by 
evaporation, and by the charring of its exterior. . To ex- 
tract meat with water gives a liquid which, precisely be- 
cause it demands little digestion, is often most valuable to 
a sick man, but a very unsuitable food for a healthy one ; 
whose stomach requires to be filled, and that too with 
matters containing a fair proportion of solids to elicit its 
action. To boil meat, after its immersion in water at 
212°, affords a broth too good to waste, and yet hardly 
good enough to form the basis of a soup. 

The French bouillon and bouilli, broth and meat, are 
formed simultaneously ; and can be produced with little 
fuel, from indifferent meat, by an unskilled cook, whose 
time is scarcely claimed at all throughout the whole pro- 
cess. And the two elements of the product — liquid and 
solid — are of almost equal alimentary excellence, each in 
its own direction of usefulness. 

Theoretically, the process is one of very slow boiling, 
in a quantity of water too small to allow of more than an 
imperfect extraction. The meat, barely covered with cold 
water, is raised very gradually (in one to two hours) to an 
imperfect ebullition ; and maintained there for a period 
roughly estimable as an hour for every pound of meat, the 
surface of which is kept covered with water by constantly 
replacing that lost in evaporation. If this process be pro- 
perly carried out, the result is a meat thoroughly tender 
and well cooked ; and a broth not only pure, clear, and 



410 COOKERY. 

fragrant ; but sufficiently strong for all reasonable dietetic 
purposes short of that office of a pabulum, which beef-tea 
sometimes has temporarily to fulfil for the sick. The time 
occupied in the process has the incidental advantage -of 
cooking various vegetables ; the solids of which are thus 
prepared as food simultaneously with the meat which they 
supplement, while their soluble and volatile constituents 
are a grateful and useful addition to the broth. 

Baking and stewing may almost be regarded as varieties 
of roasting and boiling respectively. Thus it is chiefly in 
the uniform application, and moderate degree of the heat ; 
and in the accumulation, around the meat, of its own 
watery vapour ; that baking differs from roasting. And it 
would be easy to show how, according to the perfection of 
these characters (as in a small clean earthen or brick-oven, 
heated very slowly and to a comparatively low temperature, 
and cooled down as gradually), the advantages of roasting 
may be approached with a far smaller expenditure of fuel 
and trouble. At the same time it is obvious that with 
anything short of these arrangements — of which perhaps 
the cookery (not the food) of Xew Zealand * was for- 
merly the best illustration — heat would be too great and 
too penetrating; and the meat, robbed of much of its 
juices, would be often injured by the empyreumatic flavour 
added by the oven or its fuel. 



* The subterranean ovens described by voyagers as capable of baking 
a whole Pig at once, must have rewarded these happy islanders with a 
kind of apotheosis of pork, which may be fitly contrasted with the confla- 
gration supposed by Charles Lamb to have casually taught the Chinese the 
gastronomic value of roast-Pig. 



STEWS AND SOUPS. 411 

The process of stewing, and the preparation of soups, 
trench too deeply on Gastronomy to receive here more than 
some such brief allusions as may range them under the 
principles of Diet, without attempting to unravel and dis- 
play their mysteries. Theoretically, a stew and a soup 
possess thus much in common, as that they seek to secure 
flavour — which, in the main, is equivalent to wholesome- 
ness — by a combination of ingredients ; and, at the same 
time, proffer much of their materials to the alimentary 
canal in a liquid state, which requires of them little or no 
digestion prior to their absorption by its vessels. But 
while the stew contains a large proportion of those various 
animal and vegetable tissues which claim to be treated as 
solid food, it would be easy to arrange soups in a kind of 
scale; which, beginning by the richest, should exhibit 
such solids in a continually decreasing proportion, and 
finally reduce them to a minimum of vegetable substances ; 
or even offer nothing but a thin animal broth, enriched 
only with the soluble and flavorous constituents of the 
vegetables used. 

The boundary between the two being thus indefinable 
as a matter of cookery, it may seem scarcely necessary or 
possible to distinguish, dietetically, between a stew and a 
soup. As is the case with other Arts, however, the suc- 
cesses of cookery cannot be expected from accident or 
genius ; but demand that the object, and method, of each 
process should be understood beforehand. And really 
if the educated public would spend one twentieth of the 
time waited in deploring the scarcity of good cooks, in 
learning and communicating to these " Ministers of the In- 



412 COOKERY. 

terior" the first principles of their art, there would soon be 
little cause of complaint, where mechanical skill is already 
so perfect.* 

What, for example, is the purpose of a soup? The 
dinner of a labourer's family ? Then it merges into a 
stew. The preparation for the chief meal of the day in 
an affluent family ? Then it must be light, and flavor ous ; 
stimulating little more than absorption ; a mere advanced 
guard of the troops of dinner. How the same county 
magistrate, or civic dignitary, who inspects a prison dietary 
in the morning, can in the evening commence an otherwise 
ample meal, with a quantity of such soup as Turtle or 
mock-Turtle, and expect to escape the results of repletion, 
it is really difficult to imagine ! 

No better illustration of stewing could be found than 
the well-known Spanish "puchero; " a study of whicl 
in all seriousness, worth the attention of those who wish 
to be unobtrusively useful in furthering the physical well- 
being of the working classes. The Spaniard's pipkin* 
cookery — if we may coin such a term — is achieved with 
the minimum both of materials and of fuel. Xo atom of 
meat or vegetable is charred or volatilised. Whatever is 
lost by the solids, is gained by the surrounding liquids. 
Many ingredients add their flavour, and other properties, 
to the mixture. And all are reduced to such a physical 



* There is perhaps no nation in the world which could show so manj 
proficients as onr own. in that toilsome and difficult process of roasting 
which is daily accomplished to perfection by thousands of English cooks. 
Intelligence only is wanting ; and the want of this is. at any rate, not the 
defect of the cook only. 



PRINCIPLES OF STEWING. 413 

state, as prepares them for the action of the digestive 
organs ; so that those tough indigestible constituents, which 
in bad cookery, defy assimilation, and often provoke the 
neglect or rejection of their more innocent companions, 
are here absent altogether. 

It is further to be noted, that the preparation of the 
"puchero " is based upon the proper recognition of a great 
law of cookery : namely, that different substances require 
such different times and heats for their cooking, as baffle 
alike the clock and the thermometer to regulate. The 
Spanish cook prepares a variety of meats and vegetables 
in different pipkins ; and only mixes them, with all the 
subtlety of the alchemists (from whom perhaps he tradi- 
tionally derives his knowledge), at the very instant of ec pro- 
jection." This fact deserves to be recollected, as having a 
profound significance with reference to cookery in general ; 
and especially as illustrating the rule already * hinted at, 
that the juices of the raw materials are themselves im- 
portant agents in the culinary process. It is not merely 
the physical tenacity of the tough meat or vegetable which 
requires a longer heat, or more water to break down. It is 
rather the quality and quantity of its own juices. So that 
(as is well known to cooks) every article of food, and every 
part of an animal or vegetable — indeed, it would hardly 
be an exaggeration to say every specimen — has its own 
rate of cooking, which nothing but observation and expe- 
rience can determine. 

The time after death at which the tissues of various 
animals are best cooked also varies extremely. In some, 

* See p. 401. 



414 COOKERY. 

it may be from unusually rapid and early decomposition, 
cooking can never be undertaken too soon after death. In 
others, moderate delay appears to improve the flavour and 
other qualities of the meat. But it is scarcely necessary 
to add, that the exact date is decided by climate and me- 
teorological causes differing in almost every locality and 
period.* It is still more obvious, that the disgusting and 
unnatural practice of eating putrid flesh is always un- 
wholesome, as well as sometimes dangerous by the gastro- 
intestinal symptoms it provokes. Nevertheless this singu- 
larly artificial taste does but exaggerate (even though it 
reverses) the experience of those real advantages which are 
obtained by moderate keeping. It is probably related to the 
rigor mortis; and to the way in which this temporary 
condition often opposes cookery by the physical tough-. 



* From all these reasons, the size of the animal is one element of its 
ordinary rate of putrefaction. Its relations To the Buzronnding temperature 
are of course equally influential, ami are necessarily in great part deter- 
mined by its cutaneous or other coverings. But it is evident that there 
are other circumstances, which are inherent to the tissues of the healthy 
animal, and which exert a great, if unexplained, influence on all the 
changes these tissues undergo after death. The contrast oi these changes 
in the Salmon and the Turbot well illustrate such a statement. The latter 
gains in flavour and digestibility by keeping a day or two : the former 
undergoes a perceptible deterioration during every hour that follow 
death. It would probably be found that, in such a contrast, the access 
the rigor mortis would be at least an index, perhaps even the cause, of the 
difference. At any rate the flesh of the Salmon seems to owe much oi its 
heavy and indigestible character to an extremely rich muscular juice: the 
partial removal of which, by solution and decomposition, is possibly one 
element of the impoverishment and deterioration it undergoes by keeping : 
just as its sudden and complete coagulation by boiling water, immediately 
after death, communicates the " curdy" aspect which delights the Scotch 
gourmet who can eat it near its haunts, 



PRINCIPLES OF STEWING. 415 

ness, the chemical resistance, and especially the com- 
paratively unmixed state of juices, which it implies. 
Cooked before the rigor mortis has had time to set in, the 
muscular tissues of fish, fowl, and other animals are cer- 
tainly far more tender and digestible, than if their cookery 
is delayed until after the advent of this state. 

Finally, the importance to the poorer classes of economy 
in cookery, suggests a recommendation of great simplicity, 
but perhaps of some value. It is bad, because dear, 
cookery habitually to use any more fuel, time, trouble, or 
material, than is really necessary. And hence, except 
among the affluent, or for purposes of variety or gastro- 
nomy, roasting is not a process to be encouraged ; while 
wholesale boiling and frying are downright waste. For in 
all these processes, the outer layer is nearly destroyed for 
nutritive purposes, in the mere act of conducting and mo- 
derating the heat applied to it, and of confining the volatile 
contents of the central mass. So that all procedures 
which accomplish these purposes with equal (or even in- 
ferior) efficacy, but more cheaply, would practically have 
the invaluable effect of adding to the scanty portion of 
meat habitually consumed by the working man. To dip 
a piece of flesh in batter, or in a mere paste of flour and 
water ; and thus sacrifice a cheap, to retain a dearer and 
more nutritive, material in the process of baking ; is the 
primitive, but effectual mode which is adopted in many 
parts of Europe ; with many of the advantages of the meat- 
pie or pudding of the English cook, or the frying " en 
jpapillotes " of the French one. 



416 






CHAP. XIII. 

CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

Diets ; as Mixtures of the preceding Articles of Food. — Difficulties of their 
Calculation. — Value of Physiological Chemistry in the Choice of Food. — 
Absolute Quantity of Food. — Results of Deficiency of Food. — Test of a 
good Diet. — Uses of its Variety. — Office of Physiology in Reference to 
Dietetics. — Chief circumstances affecting Diet. — Diet as modified by 
Age; in Childhood, in Old Age. — Diet as modified by Sex. — By Habits 
of Life; Confinement, Inaction, Mental Exertion. — By Climate: in 
Arctic, Tropical, Regions. — By Race. — By Disease. — Diet in Di- 
of the Digestive Organs. — In Diseases of Exhaustion ; of Repletion. — 
Repletion; general and casual. — Repletion from checked Elimination ; 
from general Congestion. — Relation of Instinct t«> Diet — Diet in 
special Diseases, how appraised. — Fever, a- an Example. — Value of 
Alcohol in Disease. — Clue to its Uses, and Abuses. — Preferable Mode 
of its Administration. — Principle of the Choice of Food and Stimulants 
in acute Disease. 

Haying thus examined into the different alimentary sub- 
stances, we may next inquire into that quantity and 
quality of the food which would be implied by theil 
admixture with each other, in the proportions best suited 
to the maintenance of health. 

From what has already been stated, it is obvious that, 
in constructing such an ideal diet, or in estimating the 
proper daily ration which ought to form the food of any 
individual or class of persons, it should be our first care to 
ascertain the presence of all the alimentary principles in 
suitable proportions. 






HOW FAR CHEMICAL. 417 

At first sights it might seem easy to calculate an efficient 
scale of diet, from no other data but those which the above 
law affords us. Indeed, it would almost appear that such 
a knowledge of arithmetic as is implied in using the rules 
of simple addition and subtraction would enable us to 
calculate an infinite number of Dietaries. For it would 
evidently be easy for us to take any forms of protein, 
hydrocarbon, or hydrate of carbon ; and compare the known 
per-centage of their elementary substances with the same 
elements in the carbonic acid and urea which represent 
the most important products of the waste of the body. 
Adapting the quantities of the former to those of the 
latter, we might thus arrange thousands of formula?, in 
which food would always exactly equal waste, and income 
expenditure : — formidce which, provided the human or- 
ganism were really made up of similar figures, would no 
doubt give us equally definite and satisfactory results 
when carried out into practice. 

A variety of circumstances, however, concur to invali- 
date such calculations, and reduce them to their true 
value : — namely, the results of mere processes of addition 
and subtraction, that only distort and obscure the facts on 
which they are founded. These circumstances prove, that 
the end of such sums in simple arithmetic is no better 
than the beginning; that they do but repeat, in a less 
specific (and therefore less truthful) form, the various 
chemical statements on which they are all based ; and 
that, carried any further, they can but mislead the Physio- 
logist. 

For instance, not all our existing knowledge of the 

E E 



418 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

composition of most of the substances commonly used as 
food> would enable us to construct a diet which would be 
certain to contain sufficient proportions of all the neces- 
sary salts. For, in the first place, we must recollect the 
probable importance of some salts which are only present 
in very small quantity ; as well as the value which similarly 
appears to attach to minute proportions of certain organic 
acids, and of their compounds with bases. In the next 
place, we must remember that, both in animals and vege- 
tables, these saline constituents seem liable to vary, in 
nature as well as in amount, according to the peculiarities 
of the soil from which they are ultimately derived. It is 
not by any means easy to insure their presence. Hence a 
good scale of diet ought to provide against any danger of 
their deficiency, by adding so much of various fresh ve- 
getables as would far exceed all possibilities of such an 
occurrence. Indeed, nothing short of such variety and 
excess can be trusted to, for the maintenance of the food 
in a state of perfection, as regards these saline constituents. 
A similar argument will apply to the quantities of all 
the other ingredients. The mechanical states of the protein 
and the hydrates of carbon have at least as much influence in 
determining their requisite amounts, as the exact quantities 
which are rendered necessary by the daily waste of the 
tissues. Hence, to this latter estimate we have always to 
add a large excess ; such (for instance) as may cover the sur- 
plus protein which passes, — undigested or indigestible — 
with the excrements, from the alimentary canal. A similar 
caution may be applied, with still more force, to that sub- 
stitution of hydro-carbon or fat, for hydrate of carbon or 



KOT MATTER OF CALCULATION. 419 

starch and sugar, which some authors have regarded as so 
easy and natural an exchange. For these substances are 
not by any means convertible or interchangeable in a 
scale of diet. The cell-wall of the adipose tissue is dis- 
solved with great difficulty ; its liberated contents are next 
absorbed in but small quantities; and they then pass 
through glands which apparently have a long and complex 
operation to execute upon them, before they are admitted 
into the general circulating current of the blood. And, 
lastly, a contrast of the results of their final combustive 
metamorphosis with those of the combustion of the hydrates 
of carbon, shows* that they require the combination of a 
much larger quantity of oxygen, before they can leave the 
body in the form of carbonic acid and water. 

The total amount of food required by the body is also 
exposed to circumstances which are just as certain to baffle 
^11 such calculations. For this important quantity will 
evidently vary with the rate of waste sustained by each 
individual : — and hence with the activity of his life; the 
nature of his habitual exertion ; and the state of his mind ; 

* Assuming the equivalent proportions of hydrogen and oxygen present in 
fat and sugar to be got rid of as water, during the combustion of both these 
substances within the organism, the former (see note to p. 33) leaves 88 -3, 
the latter (C 12 H 12 12 -12HO = C 12 = ^ = ) 40, per cent, of its original 
mass for oxidation. The equivalents of oxygen required for this process in 
the two cases respectively, amount in round numbers to 445 and 107. In 
other words, equal quantities of fat and of sugar demand for their com- 
bustion, the first about four times its own weight of oxygen, the second 
about one-fourth of this proportion, or its own weight only. And on Du- 
long's estimates already (p. 33) noticed, we may calculate that, while the 
combustion of 100 grains of fat would evolve about 59,520 units of heat, 
that of 100 grains of sugar would liberate only 18,570, or less than one- 
third of the heat given out by an equal weight of fat. 

BE 2 



420 CHOICE OF FOOD. OR DIET. 

as well as with the climate, race, temperament, and educa- 
tion, which help to form the microcosm of every man's 
personality. The range in the necessary quantity which 
these circumstances may produce, cannot be specified with 
exactness. But the influence of some of them (and these 
by no means the most potent) may be well illustrated by a 
comparison of the habits of the various members of a 
single family, or other group of persons : the ration barely 
sufficient to support one in health, constituting, for an- 
other, a large superfluity beyond what he or she can | 
sibly consume.* 

Hence the true value of Physiological Chemistry, in 
respect to the principles of Dietetics, is that of I 
admirable guide to the general coi ion of a pr 

food. In this capacity, it is not too much to Bay that its 
veto ought to be absolute. But this negative function U 
almost the limit of its practical usefulness. Our cl 
the exact quantities and qualities of alimentary 
which are necessary to construct a pi 
may indeed be sometimes explained by Chemistry. But it 



* It is thus no argument against either the economy or the nc 

a given Dietary, that a certain proportion of (hoc a it is intended 

find it more than tl. I through. That soldiers habitual! 

of their rations, or prisoners leave quantities 

place of confinement, may indeed s me inquiries: amor. 

mer, as to their temperance. and plaoi le; among the 

latter, as to the nature and amount of work t' 

apart from the considerations alluded to in the 

obvious that a sufficiency for the many must be a superfluity for tin I 

that the administration of a due supply of food by the doling out of ra*i 

implies such an appearance of waste; the absence of which woul 

more suspicious than its presence. 



AVERAGE QUANTITY OF FOOD. 421 

must always be dictated by experience. And the Dietaries 
of Gaols, Workhouses, and other public Institutions, cor- 
rected, as they have so often been, by the ghastly hand of 
Death himself, have fixed the limits of the food necessary 
for health, with an accuracy which, considering the price 
of human life that has been paid for it, ought surely to 
satisfy the most rigid Economist. 

From such sources of information we may deduce that, 
in this climate, a healthy adult male, of active habits, re- 
quires daily about two pounds of solid food. Of this food, 
six or eight ounces are preferably meat. While, if the 
quality of such a diet be lowered (as, for example, by the 
introduction of much Potatoes or Rice), its quantity ought 
to be increased, so as to compensate for this lessening of 
its nutritious characters. 

Bat if Diets should be judged of by experience, it is no 
hasty or superficial observation which entitles us to appraise 
the various scales of food adopted by persons or Institu- 
tions as the means of nourishment. On the contrary, 
the action of food is, for the ignorant and unthinking, 
a scarcely less perilous question than that other and cog- 
nate question concerning the influence of Medicines, which 
is (and probably always will be) the very touchstone of 
Quackery, both within and without the pale of the Medical 
profession. 

Hunger and leanness, for instance, are vulgarly regarded 
as the chief results of an habitually insufficient food. 
Muscular and mental weakness would probably be added 
to these effects by all those who had ever really experienced 
such a deficiency. But Physiological Medicine takes a far 

E E 3 



422 CHOICE OF FOOD. OR DIET. 

more sweeping objection to an insufficient nourishment : 
and points out infinitely more delicate, as well as dangerous 
effects, almost too numerous to mention. Dysentery, 
scurvy, scrofula, ulcers, phthisis, gout, rheumatism, and a 
host of the worst ills that flesh is heir to, are thus traced 
by science to a meagre Dietary; and that, too, with a 
precision and conclusiveness such as, in the name of hu- 
manity, forbids all further experimentation in aid of the 
frightfully numerous observations of this kind which the 
casualties of human life, and the ignorance and cup: 
of individuals and governing bodies, have together - 
forded. Diseases, again, are foreseen by her in their 
preliminary stage of cachexia ; to be kept at bay by richer 
food. And even "common expea and "comi 

justice" are occasional! . The one, for example, 

finds that a scanty or innutrit: 
patible with a not very unhealthy 8 ace oft!, 

use it. The other inveighfl sandal of a cri- 

minal in prison being better fed than an honest Labourer out 
of doors. But Phy — somewhat to mo- 

dify the warning of th< Id Greek — to call no man 

healthy till he is dead : in other words, not mere!} 
to the absence of disease at the moment, but to trace out 
the slower and more permanent effects of a Dietary in i 
life, before we call it a wholesome one. The workL 
child, stunted and weakly through its whole nee, 

or failing for want of stamina in some casual 
the sturdy r hammed dying out long before the 

period of English old age : the field labourer crippled with 
the premature decrepitude of rheumatism : the prisoner, 



TEST OF ITS EFFICIENCY. 423 

released from his cell to languish as a blanched and re- 
laxed specimen of humanity, unfit for all active exertion, 
through the remainder of his days : these and a hundred 
other similar illustrations might be adduced, to show how 
little the mere absence of immediate disease disproves the 
insufficiency of a diet, and the loss of health or life which 
it ultimately brings about. 

Most of these illustrations, however, might be challenged 
as offering but doubtful examples of the exclusive effects 
of too sparing a food. Indeed, in all of them the defi- 
ciency is relative, not absolute. Neglect, overwork, ex- 
posure, and confinement, not only count for much in the 
above four hypothetical cases respectively ; but are, in the 
main, precisely those circumstances which imperiously de- 
mand a richer and larger food. And they thus permit us to 
deduce two chief propositions, which all our existing know- 
ledge of Dietaries does but tend to confirm and illustrate. 
The first is, that only that Diet can be regarded as a good 
one, which observation shows to be capable of preserving 
health, from the commencement of independent nourish- 
ment in the young animal, to the natural decay which 
marks the extreme period of old age. The second — that 
while it is very doubtful whether such a Diet has ever 
been explicitly recognised and adopted by any human 
society, it is certain that the mixture and variety of food 
commonly made use of is, in the main, both natural and 
useful : especially in its conditionating the prescribed func- 
tions of the human race. Permitting changes of climate, 
protecting against the agencies of injury and disease, 
nerving to exertions otherwise impossible, a wide range 

E E 4 



424 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

of food is practically essential to Man : to whom, humanly 
speaking, it would have been impossible to replenish the 
earth and subdue it, or to have dominion over its brute 
inhabitants, unless, with this command, he had also received 
a sanction to range its various organised materials for his 
sustenance. 

Hence there is hardly any circumstance of life or habits 
which does not in some degree influence, and so far dictate, 
the choice of food of him whom it affects. And con- 
versely, there is hardly any injurious influence which the 
Dietary of the individual may n< m >r a amterpoise. 

Bruises, dislocations, and fractures arc no « 
rule: either as regards the vigour of p rception and m< 
mentby which they would often be avoided; orthediffei 
degrees of mechanical force requisite to produce a given 
lesion of either kind in well and ill-nourished tissues re- 
spectively; or the different facility with which they would 
repair these injuries. And of course the same rules are 
traceable in the causation of 1' dy in t: 

maladies notoriously ascribable to the food, but in others 
in which the dietary plays but a secondary and often ob- 
scure part. The hearty well-fed English miner i-, I 
as regards his capacity for work, and his liability to 
disease, so marked a contrast to the miner of Germany, 
that his privation of light and air might well i an 

unphilosophical observer, almost matter- of indifference. 
The process of poisoning by lead is. as is well known to 
artisans much exposed to the emanations of this metal, 
greatly impeded by a rich and fatty diet. Indeed, experi- 
mental Physiology acquaints us with what is a more strik 



AS GUIDED BY PHYSIOLOGY. 425 

(because more exact) illustration of these rules ; lacking 
scarcely anything which can make it an " experimentum 
cruris" The large and valuable materials of the bile can, 
it seems, be lost to the system with something approaching 
to impunity, if ooly the loss be compensated by an equi- 
valent increase of the food. While, without such a coun- 
terpoise, the discharge of this secretion through an artificial 
fistula speedily brings about the death of the animal. 
(Compare p. 195.) 

But the Physiology of food not merely registers the 
deductions of experience, and confirms the dictates of 
instinct, with respect to Diet. It groups our facts by ex- 
planations, which often claim the accuracy and the rank of 
theories. It checks the deceptive assertions of hasty ob- 
servation ; warns us against the still more deceptive boun- 
dary which separates the claims of instinct from the 
cravings of luxury; nay more, as already hinted, exposes 
stupidity or cruelty cruising under the colours of philan- 
thropy. It further questions the dietetic practices of Physic ; 
which, fluctuating more than Physiology in obedience to 
the fashion of the day, precisely because the emergencies 
of disease perpetually import into its discussion the strong 
feelings, and weak judgment, of an uninformed public, 
must be content to be judged of, as a scientific edifice, in 
some respects by the harmony and solidity of its union 
with this, its natural basis. On all of these grounds it 
may be advisable briefly to review a few of the chief cir- 
cumstances, which, on rational principles, require adjust- 
ments of Diet. 



426 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

Age, in its extremes of infancy and decrepitude, may be 
first noticed. As respects infancy, there is little need of 
asserting the importance of milk — as the only proper 
food — to the newly born infant : or even of deducing, from 
the wide chemical deviations of this secretion in different 
species and individuals, as well as periods of lactation, the 
general advisability of the milk which should form the 
only nutriment being that of the mother herself. It is 
chiefly during that period of early childhood which foil 
weaning that any dietetic questions can really arise, such 
as Physiology can help to answer. 

The peculiar wants of a child, etfl regards its food, may 
be best recollected and explained by the peculiarities oi 
Nutrition generally. Compared with the adult. i1 
up, in a more or less permanent form, a far pro- 

portion of the constituents of its mgesta amqng th< 
of its body. In other words, for equal amounts of 
(though not of bodily* Bubstance also ), a Bmaller quantity 

* Exact observations, on this and other points allied to it. i 
our disposal. But it is more than probable that the vital 
organism of the young animal involves both a larger supply, and a I 
waste of its tissues; as represented, for instance, either by tin- i 
their total interchange, or by the fraction of their i 

time. Thus we may estimate that a child of eight or nine ge, as 

contrasted with a full-grown adult, actually gives off. relatively to the v. 
of its body, one and a half times as much carbonic acid ; and the same rule 
probably applies to its urea. But neither of ions invali 

the above conclusion, which rests indeed on the m f increment or 

growth (eomp. p. 2). as proving a preponderance of incom .; endi- 

ture. The degree which such preponderance of income over expenditure 
may attain in the independent Nutrition of the young of the V 
class, is well illustrated by the growth of the Salmon. According to Major 
Keane ("Times." April '22. 1861), the Smolt of three ounces in April 



IN CHILDHOOD. 427 

of effete matter is necessarily dismissed from its body by 
those various functions of which the egesta are the ultimate 
products. Now most of these functions are so strictly depu- 
rative ; indeed, are so specifically the means of eliminating 
poisons casually mixed with the ingesta ; that this contrast 
sufficiently explains why purity from such admixture is in 
the case of the infant a far more imperious requirement 
than in the adult ; who receives and assimilates with im- 
punity, and even advantage, many articles of food which 
would injure (i. e. poison) the infant. Furthermore, a 
careful consideration of the processes which we sum up 
by the term " Digestion," would show that not only are 
the various metamorphoses thus comprehended conducted 
more feebly and imperfectly in the infant, but that there 
are grounds for supposing these conversions themselves to 
be chemically somewhat more limited. On the other 
hand, the child requires, for the construction of its future 
tissues, many ingredients — and that, too, in large quantities 
— which are little or not at all demanded for that equation 
of income and expenditure which represents the process of 
Nutrition in the adult. The morphological and chemical 
changes, for example, which transform the cartilaginous 
femur of the infant into the bone bearing the same name in 
the adult, imply such large and incessant demands on the 
part of its organism for lime, magnesia, and phosphoric 
acid, as may well suggest the possible magnitude of the con- 
trast in the proportions of these inorganic substances re- 
has been recaptured three months later, in the form of a Grilse weighing 
five or six pounds, an increase at the rate of 36| per cent, of its own weight 
daily. 



428 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

quired to be present in its food. Xor does the circumstance, 
that such a contrast is probably only quantitative, much 
affect the deducible result. 

Thus, then, the child requires, on every ground, a food 
which is purer, richer, simpler, and more digestible than 
that of the adult. More digestible, both in the sense of 
being less charged with insoluble matters, and involved in 
fewer physical obstacles to this process ; and also in the 
sense of being less dissimilar to the various tissues which 
it has to form. Eicher, in the true and natural sense of 
variety of ingredients, mineral as well as organic : a va- 
riety which civilisation (culture of vegetables, breeding and 
feeding of animals, and silver-spoon cookery) must rather 
prevent than favour. Simpler, too ; for richness of this 
kind is so perfectly compatible with the strictest simplicity, 
that home-made wheaten-bread, milk, butter, sugar, and 
a sparing quantity of well-cooked meat or strong broth, 
would together make up a food such as would be a model 
of both qualities. Purer, again, in all that makes real 
purity. Tainted meat, diseased or decayed 
and other impurities of this kind, seem to tell first and 
most on the children of the unhappy individuals or - - 
cieties who are forced to feed upon them : much as alcohol, 
opium, or the poisonous emanations from living and dead 
bodies, would, eater is paribus, generally affect them first. 
Indeed, here as elsewhere, our habits and conduct are 
tested by our children : who, if not sacrificed to MolochJ 
as of yore, are at any rate, in another and far more 
fatal sense, passed through the fires we kindle by our 
own ignorance and folly. 



IN OLD AGE. 429 

Two considerations only call for further mention in this 
cursory sketch. The first is, that, during the period of 
childhood, instinct is a better guide — at any rate, a more 
determinable one — than at later ages ; when habits and 
taste, often artificial, are so easily mistaken for it. The 
second (which constitutes almost a corollary to the fore- 
going) is, that the concurrence of a feebler digestion, 
with greater systemic wants ; or of a kind of comparative 
inability on the part of the alimentary canal, with those 
greater constitutional demands of which the more frequent 
craving for food at this age is a natural expression ; con- 
stitutes a peculiarity of the child's Nutrition, requiring to 
be met by a proper adjustment of its meals : which, to 
fulfil these somewhat opposite demands, ought to be both 
smaller and more frequent than would be generally re- 
quisite in the case of a healthy adult. 

Old age, though it reverses many of the nutritional 
peculiarities of the infant, yet permits no correspondingly 
simple modifications in the quality and quantity of food. 
The aged person, it is true, requires less food to replace 
his diminished daily waste, or the slower and smaller 
expenditure which represents his rate of Life. His 
enfeebled organs of Digestion, again, can no longer pre- 
pare and convert that amount of materials which they 
formerly elaborated : — materials which, even supposing 
them thus converted and assimilated, his various functions 
could no longer use to the advantage of his organism, 
and finally dismiss from his body. And it is evident that, 
inasmuch as Digestion, like all other functions, implies 
wear and tear ; and claims, from a variety of organs, an 



430 CHOICE OF FOOD, OB DIET. 

expenditure of force which is tantamount to an expen- 
diture of tissue ; any undue claims upon such expenditure 
can but weaken, rather than strengthen, the failing frame. 
Furthermore, those large fluctuations in the quantity of 
blood distributed to the digestive organs, which are ob- 
viously necessary for their operations, must, if unduly 
favoured and exalted, add to those risks of vascular lesion, 
which all trustworthy statistics show to be a large element, 
and frequent occasion, of death in old age. Hence, on all 
these grounds, moderation in the quantity of food, care 
in its preparation, and simplicity in its form, are the 
principal requirements in the Dietary of the aged. 

But, on the other hand, we have to recollect the com- 
plexity, and therefore the difficulty (and even danger) of 
all generalisations as to the alimentation of advanced life. 
The habits of a life-time are, indeed, often as thoroughly 
built up into the mind and body of the individual, as 
though they were literally incorporate with his tissues. 
Idiosyncrasies, it may be, confirmed and exaggerated by 
custom : poisons almost disarmed by habit : diseases or 
degenerations claiming their own special treatment, both 
as to Diet and drugs: — these, and a host of similar con- 
siderations, familiar to the practitioner of Physic, modify 
(and often reverse) all ordinary rules for the food of old 
ao-e : or reduce them to such truisms as are devoid of all 
specific or casual meaning. Excess, for instance, we may 
truly say, is in the old unusually injurious. But how to 
define excess ? Reduction of diet may be advisable. But 
how far shall this reduction go ? The successes of unusual 
abstinence (like the fulfilments of presentiments) are 



IN THE FEMALE. 431 

bruited abroad by the friends of the resolute septuagen- 
arian. But who registers its failures? Certainly, to judge 
by experience, a healthy old age is rarely extorted from 
Nature by rash innovations in the decline of life. 

Sex, as modifying food, has a double import. The 
smaller amount of bodily fatigue and exposure which 
ought to be the lot of the female, would of course demand 
a somewhat smaller ration of food to correspond with the 
smaller resulting waste of her bodily tissues. This feature 
of her Nutrition, however (to which there are so many 
exceptions even in civilised societies, that we may term it, 
only too truly, a casualty of the female in respect of diet), 
is greatly outweighed by another, more specific to the 
share taken by her in the function of reproduction. Her 
nutritional Life may indeed be regarded as offering some 
analogies to that of the child. That continual deposit of 
new materials, in the form of an increase of all the 
tissues, which constitutes the growth of the child, is paral- 
leled in the female by the development, and subsequently 
the lactation, of her offspring. Hence, while in the adult 
female, as contrasted with the male, there is a much 
scantier process of waste, as shown by all the numerical 
phenomena of excretion *; in both the child and the 
female, the balance of Nutrition so far inclines from an 
exact counterpoise, as to permit such a constant surplusage 

* It may be estimated that, in the female, a given weight of bodily sub- 
stance gives off about five-sixths the amounts of urea and carbonic acid 
given off by a similar weight in the male. Pregnancy raises this five- 
sixths to about eleven-twelfths. And the close of the epoch of fertility 
seems almost to equalise the previous difference of the two sexes in this 
respect. 



432 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

of ingesta over egesta, as can be devoted to other pur- 
poses than those of the mere maintenance of the existing 
body. But while the growth of the child is continuous, 
the reproduction of the female is necessarily more inter- 
mittent. And hence this surplus, when not otherwise 
claimed, appears as a periodic haemorrhage from the same 
organs which, during gestation, appropriate it to the ex- 
penditure of their own function for the purpose of re- 
production. 

From the many plrysiological deductions suggested by 
this brief statement, one only may be selected from its 
important influence on the subject of Diet. Great as are 
the fluctuations of Nutrition in the female during the age 
of child-bearing, it is clear that they are provided for, 
rather by causes intrinsic to her organism, than by any 
correspondingly large and rapid extrinsic changes in the 
quantity and quality of her food. In other words, preg- 
nancy and lactation no more demand systematic high 
feeding, than do virginity or sterility claim a converse 
process of comparative starvation. Analogy, indeed, would 
suggest, that during those periods of active maternity, 
when the female is, kclt i^o^?]v, woman, and the con- 
stitution can no longer relieve itself by a haemorrh* 
expulsion of what is superfluous or detrimental, but m 
to some extent inflict a proportion of any such materials 
on her offspring, her diet should, so far as possible, approach 
that of the growing child in all those requisites of richness 
simplicity, purity, quantity, and frequency, above hinted 
at. And, indeed, instinct and experience concur in re- 
presenting such a mode of alimentation as best conducing 



AS INFLUENCED BY HABITS. 433 

to the health of both mother and offspring. While many 
recondite phenomena of these states suggest to the Physio- 
logist, that the peculiarities of Nutritional life and waste 
associated with them, are such as distantly resemble that- 
constitutional reaction which accompanies the inflammatory 
state ; and are therefore likely, to judge by the presump- 
tive evidence of this analogy, to render all excess of food 
or stimulants unusually deleterious. 

Habits of life affect Diet by influences as many and 
diverse as this vague but useful phrase would itself suggest. 
By none, however, more seriously than by those which 
relate to the amounts of exertion, and of exposure ; and the 
correlative degrees of waste sustained by the muscles, the 
brain, the skin, and lungs ; according as an individual is 
habitually active or slothful; naked or thickly clad ; moving 
to and fro in a pure fresh air, or confined to an impure 
atmosphere more or less charged with the emanations of 
animal life. 

The influence of confinement of this kind is not merely 
that which we might expect ; — such a diminution of waste 
as may be plausibly connected with the accumulation in 
the organs of its last products (carbonic acid, urea, water, 
and the like). It is rather some deeper disturbance of 
Nutrition ; which (unless we explain the greater require- 
ments of the prisoner by the absence of various volatile 
ingredients presumably contained in larger proportions in 
a fresher and freer air), reminds us of the rule already 
laid down, that confinement, in the main, demands a richer 
diet. But quite compatible with such a rule is another, of 
far more frequent applicability : namely, that confinement 

F F 



434 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

so greatly injures the Digestive powers, that the Dietetic 
practice ordinarily adopted by the affluent (among whom 
the consumption of food is limited only by the instinct or 
discretion of the individual) demands, in the case of the 
sedentary, so many exceptions and qualifications as to be 
rarely, if ever, applicable. Often, however, the impairment 
of the natural appetite indicates with sufficient exactness 
the decrease of digestive and assimilative power. 

The varying amounts of exercise usually (but not neces- 
sarily) connected with exposure and confinement respec- 
tively, affect Diet by a very simple rule. Up to a certain 
degree, which may practically be almost taken to represent 
the amount of habitual exertion compatible with health, 
muscular action calls for food, and favours its digestion. 
Beyond this degree, it has precisely the opposite effect ; 
and its increment rapidly brings on a feverous state, in 
which all appetite soon fails, and any true Digestion be- 
comes impossible. In the latter case it is evident that 
more or less of the waste properly supplied by the food is 
thrown entirely on the tissues; and (as a corollary to this 
proposition) that any prolongation of the exertion beyond 
a certain limit would be impossible. It is probable that 
the blood is the agent of this singular inversion of the 
healthy proportion between food and exercise : that the 
derangement of this fluid, perhaps by an accumulation of 
the regressive (p. 270) or effete constituents of the mus- 
cular tissues themselves, unfits it for its office, in con- 
nection both with Digestion on the one hand, and with the 
Nutrition of muscle on the other. At any rate, the fact is 
undoubted, that not only is it impossible to compensate or 



AS INFLUENCED BY MENTAL EXERTION. 435 

sustain undue exertion by a mere increase in the quantity 
and richness of the food taken, but that the feverous state 
such exertion soon brings about is best treated by a cor- 
responding diminution of aliment in both these respects. 
Indeed, inten^jty and protraction of toil demand, as they 
increase, a decreasing scale of food, which rapidly sinks to 
the meagre fare formerly adopted by Couriers while travel- 
ling day and night. 

Mental exertion might perhaps be regarded as repeat- 
ing this rule; only with an earlier limit or climax before 
the reversal of the natural proportions between food and 
exercise. Apart from the collateral circumstances of 
mental toil, there can be no doubt that the wear and tear 
of nervous energy and tissue which it implies, demand a 
rich and plentiful food. But collateral influences are 
often too complex to permit this rule to be carried to its 
otherwise legitimate conclusions. The want of air, of 
bodily exertion, of sleep, of change of posture ; the per- 
petual strain on one or two senses, or even faculties : these, 
and many other circumstances which readily suggest them- 
selves, often distort (or even reverse), the results which 
mere mental exertion, strictly so called*, would bring 
about. It is perhaps to these that we must attribute much 
of the injury to Digestion and Nutrition, for which mental 
exertion is ordinarily held answerable ; and the precautions 
as to both, which are the practical import of the careful 
and somewhat restricted Diet proper to the brain-worker. 

Climate affects food mainly by the temperature it im- 

* In this stricter sense it "would perhaps be invidious to say that great 
mental exertion is unconimon ; but it is certainly not often fatal. 

F F 2 



436 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

plies. And though temperature exercises a general influ- 
ence, such as can neither be denied nor mistaken : still the 
circumstances collateral to it, and yet more to the climate 
with which it is associated, greatly modify all ordinary 
rules of Diet based upon it. 

For example, the maintenance of the bodily heat against 
extreme cold calls for an increase in the products, and 
therefore in the rate, of the bodily combustion. Hence, 
an Esquimaux, the air of whose fireless hut varies from 
0° to 32° Fahr., and who passes the remainder of his time, 
sparingly clad, in an atmosphere of 30° to 70° below : 
consumes about 14lbs. of raw meat daily * : — a quantity 
of food which would be quite repugnant to all natural 
instincts, and equally incompatible with health, in a 
Hindoo or South Sea Islander. But the contrast is equally 
striking as to quality. One-third of this meat is fat : fat, 
too, far less diverse in composition, and digestible in 
physical arrangement, than is the butter largely used by 
the Hindoo. Nay more, there are ground a 
that both the fat and muscle of the flesh thus consumed 
are more potent sustainers of combustion, and under 
ordinary circumstances would be more indigestible, tl 
the analogous tissues of the various domestic or wild aui: 
found in warmer latitude-. 

What this fat does, and why it is so large an element of 
Arctic food, are not questions to be answered by any single 
or hasty speculation. We may take for what it is worth 
the analogy of the incandescence of fat in a lamp : the 
large equivalent of heat evolved, and the exceeding ditrl- 

* Dr. Hayes's Arctic Boat Journey. Bentley: i860. 



AS INFLUENCED BY COLD CLIMATES. 437 

culty of burning up all the carbon. Such an appraise- 
ment, however, would probably leave us disinclined to 
overlook two other contingent elements of its value : (1.) 
the wear and tear of the fatty tissues of the nervous system 
in the process (whatever be its exact details) of the de- 
velopment of heat ; and (2.) the physical value (indeed the 
absolute want) of an outer covering of fat : — a require- 
ment, which, in these latitudes, man shares with the Quad- 
ruped, and with the Cetacean. Certainly the experience of 
our Arctic voyagers is conclusive, both as to the complete 
inversion of dietetic instinct which the European undergoes 
in these regions, and its beneficial influence against their 
inclement climates.* 

* We may sum up the chief elements of that increase of food, which is 
required in a cold climate, as follows : — 

1. The increased loss of heat from the surface of the body: (a.) by ra- 
diation, which is unopposed, as in warmer climates, by any converse pro- 
cess of absorption; and (b.) by convection. In the latter process the par- 
ticles of air which strike against the body, or against the conducting sub- 
stances in contact with it, carry with them in their further course a 
certain portion of its temperature. And this convection is proportionate to 
the number of aeriform particles thus impinging in a given time ; in other 
words, to the velocity of their renewal. Hence a high wind at 32° cools 
the body far more than a still air at 0°. 

2. The increased loss of heat from the lungs. Here, again, we may 
notice two chief constituents : (a.) the heat expended in warming the re- 
spired air; and (b.) the heat given out, both as sensible and latent, in the 
watery vapour exhaled. As regards the first, the law which regulates the 
heating of the air inspired, allows a vast increase in the loss of prdmonary 
heat, in proportion to the coldness of the air which receives the expired 
air, even though its absolute temperature remains below the standard of 
the air exspired in a temperate climate. Thus, according to Valentin, air 
inspired at 68° is exspired but 31|° hotter; inspired at 21° F., is exspired 
68° hotter. In other words, the inspiration of air 47° colder, more than 
doubles the previous loss of heat by the lungs ; with air still colder, the 

F F 3 



438 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET, 

On the other hand, a moderate temperature of the sur- 
rounding air reduces the demands of combustion to those 
of the organism in general, rather than of the calorific 
function in particular. And any increase of temperature 
above this degree tends, directly or indirectly (according 
as it is above or below the heat of the living tissues), to 

loss probably increases in a geometrical progression. As regards the 
second (b.), the water} 7 vapour which is contained in the inspired air, and 
is scanty in proportion to its coldness, is increased in the lungs by a 
contribution from the blood present here. This contribution, the quantity 
of which may be roughly estimated as tending to saturate the air at the 
temperature of exspiration, robs the body, not only of the heat it carries 
off in its own temperature, but also of the heat rendered latent by the 
sage of its water from the liquid to the vapour} 7 form. Th both 

these sources is necessarily great. 

Amongst circumstances more collateral to the pulmonary interchange 
may only notice two, which, though they necessarily exercise a direct in- 
fluence on temperature, are more important as T >f that process 
by which all these difficulties are met and overcome. The seantin 
vapour of a colder air implies, bulk for bulk, a larger proporti 
gases, including its oxygen. And the general increase of density cj 
by cold amounts — presuming the capacity of each respiration uochanged — 
to an increase of oxygen which far transcends this. For example, a dry air 

/ 15 + 62 77 \ 

at - 15° F. contains ( 480 = ^0 ; auJ 4U3 ' 48 ° * : 5 t0 6 nearl . v ) one " 

fifth more oxygen than an equal bulk of the same air at 62 c . 

There are of course other Physiological contingencies of Arctic exist 
which might easily be brought together to increase this list. But, on the 
whole, many of these arc doubtful, and all are subordinate to the pre- 
ceding. That the vast ranges of temperature, the long a 
and. indeed, the whole of the above phenomena of a highly taxed Nutrition, 
claim a larger proportion of the total nervous energies than they would 
demand in more temperate regions ; and hence leave less of these en< 
to be expended in the direct service of the mind: — is 
tallies alike with the history of the Hyperborean tribes, and with the 
sonal experience of those of our brave fellow-countrymen, and our American 
kinsmen, who have battled successfully for science and humanity in 1 
terrible scenes, against all obstacles, mental and bodily. 



AS INFLUENCED BY HOT CLIMATES. 439 

evoke the application of the corresponding safeguard against 
heat, both in plants and animals ; namely, evaporation. 

But the difference between the animal and vegetable 
forms of Life, in the fact that the former does, and the 
latter (for practical purposes) does not, largely generate 
heat within its tissues, seems to regulate the degree in 
which this physical compensation is made use of. In the 
case of a Palm-tree in a desert, steadily maintaining 
itself twenty or thirty degrees below the temperature of 
the surrounding air, the evaporation of the water it ab- 
sorbs or constructs is the chief, if not the only, explanation 
of the contrast offered by its living organism. But in 
the analogous case of a human being maintaining an equal 
thermometric difference, mere evaporation is not the only 
interpretation. Any diminution in the evolution of heat 
within the body would practically have the same effect as 
a positive reduction of temperature, effected by evapora- 
tion at the surface. For even where the outer air ' or 
clothing has a temperature far above 100°, the smallest 
hypothetic decrease in the evolution of internal heat would 
permit the same lowering of external temperature to be 
mediated by a decreased evaporation. 

The empirical side of the question seems to a great 
extent explained by these considerations. Experience 
shows that, as a rule, the food consumed in hot climates 
is both scantier and less rich than that of colder regions. 
And even the few exceptions to this rule are sufficiently 
explained by the foregoing considerations. Increase of 
muscular exertion must increase the ordinary requirements 
of a warm climate. And the great contrasts of tempera- 

F F 4 



440 CHOICE OF FOOD, OE DIET. 

ture which are met with even in hot climates* where a frosty 
night often succeeds a burning day, may similarly demand 
a correction of our ideas respecting the thermal characters 
of a particular region. Again, the cravings of luxury and 
sensuality are not quite unknown even in Tropical climates : 
and the difference between what is wanted and what is 
eaten, or between what is eaten and what is really digested, 
is doubtless at least as great in the case of many an 
affluent Asiatic, as of a Western gourmand* But, on the 
whole, where a great degree of warmth is possessed by the 
air around, so that the body both gives off less heat, and 
requires less exercise to aid in maintaining its temperature, 
the habitual food is reduced in quantity. And its quality 
is still more affected. A large proportion usually cone 
of starch, sugar, or the other substances allied to these 
hydrates of carbon ; which, while they certainly seem to 
develope less heat by their assimilation, have the further 
merit of undergoing, if undigested, a decomposition much 
less hazardous both to the organs of Digestion, and to the 
body in general, than that which, under similar circum- 
stances, engages the ordinary ingredients of our animal 
food. Indeed, to this advantage (which the pathology and 
treatment of dysentery well illustrate) may probably be 
added those of a more accurately regulated absorption 
into the blood, as well as of a readier elimination from it ; 
points in which excesses of oily or albuminous food seem 
more liable to damage the constitution, than are those 
starchy substances which almost every animal seems to take 
with impunitj^ in any reasonable quantity. 

The influence of Race upon Diet is at present in com- 



AS INFLUENCED BY RACE. 441 

plete uncertainty. To judge by those contrasts in indivi- 
duals which society offers us^ as well as by the valuable 
information which of late years cattle-breeders have placed 
at our disposal, the frugality of some nations may partially 
depend on a capacity* for being nourished with smaller 
quantities of food : a comparison which indeed the fattening 
of animals of the same species on a very different quantity 
of food converts into a certainty as regards them. But 
climate^ habits, mental and bodily toil, and a variety of 
allied circumstances; generally deprive such contrasts of 
all practical value in the human subject. 

* In such a presumable capacity, however, it is probable that there are 
two elements so diverse as almost to constitute alternatives to each other. 
In the hardy, frugal person, as well as in the wiry, lean, wild animal, we 
seem to recognise a tenacious retention, and complete elaboration, of the 
materials metamorphosed in the various functions. In the small-boned, 
easily-fattened animal (whose human analogue, by the way, every accurate 
observer of his fellow-creatures must often have noticed), bred by an arti- 
ficial selection, a peculiarity precisely the reverse of this seems to obtain. 
The development and nourishment of tissue, qua tissue, has a very early 
limit; beyond which all further Nutrition tends, not to a true assimilation, 
but to an obliteration of the differences characteristic of the several tissues : 
interspersing muscle, for example, with fatty matters ; and also depositing 
these substances in enormous quantities over the whole body (comp. pp. 
275, 276) ; as well as surcharging the blood and the nutritional fluids to an 
unnatural richness with albuminous and allied compounds. But the two 
economies of Nutrition are so far antagonist to each other, as that (for 
example) an Arab of the Desert would live well on a quality and quantity 
of food which would destroy an European by its insufficiency. On the 
other hand, the analogy of the wild, lean, old-fashioned breed of Pigs, as 
contrasted with the more easily fattened modern breeds, — a contrast which 
would, under similar circumstances, repeat this proposition, — entitles us 
to presume that the constitution of the Arab would offer much the same 
reluctance to fatten, as does that of his brute analogue. In every true 
sense, of course, Nutrition and "Natural selection" go hand in hand, and 
the wild animal is physically superior to its more easily fattened congener. 



442 



CHOICE OF FOOD, OK DIET. 



Disease influences Diet by requirements so various and 
important, that nothing short of a treatise on Practical 
Medicine could fitly discuss this part of our subject. 

It is not, however, in the form of substantive maladies 
or lesions that we need here speak of the influence of 
disease upon the alimentary requirements. It will be 
enough to allude to some of the chief states or conditions 
which call for modifications of the food. 

The involvement of the Digestive organs in disease, 
naturally ranks first among these states. For whatever 
the organ or tissue affected, it is evident that the office 
of the group to which it belongs will always suggest 
the application of two rules; which, mutatis mutandis, 
Eational Medicine would probably repeat in reference to 
the diseases and injuries of every part of the body. Con- 
sidering that the food constitutes the material an which 
the digestive organs have to operate on the one hand, and 
the proper stimulant of its special sensibility on the other, 
it is evident that the rules of securing for the seat of 
every lesion the maximum of rest, and the minimum of 
irritation, would alone guide us to a suitable choice of 
food. 

Let us suppose, for example, that an ulcerated state of 
the stomach is present. Here complete re^t to the di- 
seased organ is forbidden by the circumstance that its 
function is so essential to Life, that its complete repose 
during a period which would elsewhere be sufficient to 
permit the healing of an ulcer, would ensure the death 
of the patient. But while, by avoiding -all superfluity of 
those albuminous constituents which it is the office of the 






AS INFLUENCED BY DISEASE. 443 

stomach to digest, we give it as much rest as we dare ; so, 
by a proper choice of the quantity and quality of these 
and other alimentary ingredients, we may render the food 
not only less irritating, but less exacting, to the stomach. 
In milk, for example, we have a food of model composi- 
tion, arranged as a bland homogeneous liquid. Its only 
faults for this malady — namely a superfluity of protein 
(p. 56), and a tendency to precipitate in the stomach 
(p. 291) — are obviated by incorporating it with some 
pure starchy substance, and boiling both into a thickish 
pulp. By administering such food in minute and frequent 
doses, we may avoid all distention of the organ, and per- 
mit this food to pass out of one end of the stomach 
almost as rapidly as it enters by the other. Lastly, in 
great emergencies, the use of enemata offers a temporary 
means of sustaining Nutrition by the administration of a 
scanty supply of food, without disturbing the stomach at 
all. 

In ulcerative disease of the large intestine, converse 
principles will apply. The avoidance of irritation, and the 
diminution of the natural stimulus, are here effected, not 
only by a restricted quantity and liquid form of food, and 
especially by the prohibition of all indigestible solids which 
would physically irritate the mucous membrane while 
being slowdy pushed along it by the peristalsis of the sub- 
jacent muscular coat — but by a selection of such food as 
may contain a minimum of those alimentary ingredients 
which are most liable to decompose during their natural 
sojourn in this part of the canal. And, without any direct 
allusion to the special relation of this and other intestinal 



444 CHOICE OF FOOD, OK DIET. 

maladies to decomposing organic matter (p. 243 ), we may 
point out that the comparative anatomy of this segment 
of the canal in Man and various animals, clearly indicates 
that there is a special and intimate relation between the 
maximum of its development and function, and the large 
digestion of vegetable (especially starchy) food. Sustain- 
ing this kind of food with comparative impunity, as a kind 
of natural stimulus, — at any rate, as the materials of its 
special function, — it appears to be far less concerned with 
the metamorphosis and absorption of the albuminous con- 
stituents of the food. Hence the spontaneous decompo- 
sition of these ingredients of the i/ngesta in the ulcerated 
bowel, unchecked by secretions which (like the gastric 
juice) should specifically control and prevent this chan 
and furthered by the admixture of such impure and effete 
products as those which are poured out by the ulcerated 
surface, rapidly convert such protein-compounds into sub- 
stances of a highly irritant — we might almost say poisonous 
— character. 

The Diet of those diseases which are less specifically re- 
lated to the Digestive organs, must be regarded as a more 
difficult question. The conditions through which alone 
we can trace any principles of alimentation, remain in 
some cases doubtful. And even in those instances in 
which the interest that naturally attaches to the more 
common and dangerous of our various maladies has led 
to close and extensive observations, there is still a re- 
markable contrariety in the conclusions arrived at 
different persons. 

Thus the rule — that Diet should be rich and tolerably 



AS INFLUENCED BY DISEASE. 445 

copious in all diseases of exhaustion, scanty and simple 
in all diseases of repletion — is one which many would un- 
hesitatingly subscribe to, as founded on instinct, echoed 
by reason, and confirmed by experience. Nevertheless the 
present day has shown us some eminent professional au- 
thorities, who have almost seemed to question whether 
there are any diseases of repletion at all ; whether, in short, 
the vast majority of maladies do not either imply, or pro- 
duce, such states of prostration and exhaustion as im- 
peratively require the administration of large quantities 
of food, and even still larger quantities of some powerful 
alcoholic stimulant. 

It is perhaps humiliating to own that Medicine is still 
discussing such broad and obvious propositions as those 
involved in the resuscitated Erunonian views just hinted 
at. But it is useless to disguise the fact that such dis- 
sensions exist. And it may not be superfluous to assert 
that, after all, a good deal of truth will probably be 
found to have been embodied in those older notions 
with respect to constitutional states as influencing Diet, 
which the Physiology of the last century thought itself 
warranted in asserting ; and which even the Microscope 
has scarcely yet disproved. Eepletion, for example, is 
a state of the constitution respecting which one can 
hardly doubt, both that it actually occurs, and that it 
demands a correlative Diet. Sometimes plainly recog- 
nisable as a kind of diathesis ; at any rate as a constitu- 
tional state unattended by discernible local lesions * ; 

* A prize Pig or an over-fed Spaniel would well illustrate this state, and 
might even suggest its appropriate treatment. 



446 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

oftener seen as the premonitory stage of gout and equally 
characteristic diseases ; it is impossible either to ignore, or 
to explain away, its general and independent manifesta- 
tions. Nor are those casual effects by which it often ex- 
ercises an important influence when intercurrent to the 
phenomena of other diseases, less dangerous or charac- 
teristic. It seems impossible to doubt that a casual ple- 
thora, substantially amounting to (and felt by the patient 
as) an excess of blood and vigour, may kill, by inducing 
haemorrhage into a diseased brain or lung ; or may 1 »e re- 
lieved or staved off by a bleeding from the nose, by ve- 
nesection, purging, or even low diet. And, conversely, 
it is difficult to imagine that alcoholic stimulation and 
high feeding can generally be otherwise than hurtful and 
dangerous in plethoric states of this kind. 

Of course we are here evading all question as to the 
constitutional states which originate the tubercles oc- 
casioning such an haemoptysis ; and the decayed and de- 
generate condition of those cerebral vessels, whose rupture 
gives vent to a haemorrhage into the nervous pulp. But 
this we have a perfect right to do. For though it is true 
that the plethoric fulness which we claim to observe, is 
sometimes only the conditionating cause of the fatal out- 
break, or the last disturbance of health which precedes the 
lesion of tissue, still this subordinate import no way affects 
the question of its existence ; and is often quite as in- 
sufficient to reverse the indications of its treatment. 

But modern Physiology and Pathology, have. I conceive, 
afforded us something more than a mere confirmation of 
what Medicine seemed to have deduced, both from reason 



AS IXFLUENCED BY DISEASE. 447 

and experience, relatively to the perils of repletion, and 
the advantages of a judicious reduction of this state by an 
appropriate reduction of the ingesta. They have given us 
the details of this condition in respect to various im- 
portant organs ; and have shown how various healthy func- 
tions, essentially of a depurative character, are capable of 
being checked by Disease. The presence of an excess of 
the materials which are thus prevented from undergoing 
due elimination, gives rise to various states, more or less 
akin to repletion ; states which, however partial, are of ex- 
treme importance, from the poisoning which any large 
excess of such impurities — as in the case of the liver or 
kidney — virtually implies. And there can be little doubt, 
that a more general repletion ; a stagnation or congestion 
of the blood, as a whole, behind the diseased organ ; is 
often added to the foregoing. And that, in conditions like 
these, it is important to avoid all overloading of the blood 
by the introduction of superfluous new materials from 
without ; nay more, that, so far as is safe or possible, it is 
advisable to rest the diseased organs, by reducing the 
materials on which they exercise their depurative func- 
tion — this would seem to be the correct general principle 
of diet respecting them. For example, in many cases of 
bronchitis, jaundice, or renal degeneration, a plain nu- 
tritious food, in sparing quantities, and unaccompanied by 
all alcoholic stimulants save those required by unusual 
complications, would best fulfil this indication. 

In the main, Nature herself enunciates these rules, by 
the loathing which food under such circumstances excites ; 
as well as by the scanty Digestion and Assimilation which 



448 CHOICE OF FOOD, OE DIET. 

are doubtless the internal counterparts of this external 
symptom. But such an instinctive aversion can scarcely 
be trusted to with safety ; inasmuch as it would often be 
extended to many articles of food, and protracted over a 
period of time, to which it would not strictly apply : and 
might thus protract the illness, if not endanger the safety, 
of the patient. To choose the right food, and give it at 
the right time, is a task in which the skill of the Physician 
has often to anticipate or guide the current of the patient's 
wishes, with the happiest results. 

In all cases, a thorough study of the particular mala 
is of extreme importance. The succession of sympt 
which constitute a given form of fever, their ordinary du- 
ration and modifications in any particular epidemic, and 
even the termination they usually affect, constitute Patho- 
logical details which are just as influential with respect to 
the Diet, as to the drugs, required for the patient*.- cure. 
But though all these propositions are so well known to the 
Profession, and have been so often stated, that some may 
wonder at their repetition in a Treatise like this, it may he 
seriously doubted whether the practice prevalent in the 
present day recognises such dietetic rules with a distinct- 
ness such as dispenses with their further enforcement. If 
there were no such thing as a routine administration of 
brandy and other alcoholic stimulants in fever : if the cir- 
cumstances which respectively demand and forbid their 
use were generally accepted and acted upon : their con- 
sideration might perhaps be left altogether to the Thera- 
peutics of Disease, rather than insufficiently glanced 
at in an Introduction to Diet. But as it is, justice to 



FOOD AXD STIMULANTS IN FEVEK. 449 

Medicine (or rather to human Life) renders it impossible 
to withhold all opinion respecting a grave dietetic error of 
the day. 

We may grants for example, that in many instances of 
severe typhoid fever, whatever enables the parched and 
wasted organism of the patient to tide over the period 
ordinarily limiting the course of the malady, conduces to 
his recovery; and that, in this way, strong beef-tea 4 
brandy, wine, and other nutritious and stimulating sub- 
stances requiring little change but absorption prior to 
their action on the body, may be given both as drinks and 
enemata, with the happy result of saving life. It must 
be granted, too, that when they are thus administered, 
the feverous state often decreases, instead of increasing, 
under their use. We may nevertheless notice one or two 
features of the existing practice of stimulation, suggesting 
great doubts of its propriety. To find the drunkard 
and the abstemious, the young and old, placed on equal 
(or nearly equal) rations of alcohol — a drug whose action 
is not merely violent, but is exceedingly diverse in the cir- 
cumstances thus hinted at, — may well excite the suspi- 
cion of a dangerous routine ; which, adopted in the pre- 
sence of those learning their Profession, can hardly fail to 
give them that low estimate of diagnosis and treatment 
which the wielding of a single fancied specific almost un- 
avoidably imparts. To see the typhus which ends on or 
before the ninth day by cerebral stupor attended with 
every sign and symptoms of the extremest congestion, 
treated by large and frequent doses of alcohol, provokes 
still graver doubts ; nay, to speak candidly, convicts the 

g a 



450 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

practice of no less irrationalism than danger. And 
lastly, to find that it is used in most cases, as well mild as 
severe, suggests analogous conclusions. I have for many 
years been convinced that, in the less severe examples of 
both typhus and typhoid, alcoholic stimulation is not only 
useless, but positively hurtful ; that it keeps up the fever- 
ous state, retards convalescence, and increases suffering ; 
and this probably by interfering with that process of the 
metamorphosis and elimination (p. 461) of a poison, which 
the whole phenomena of these fevers seem to suggest. 

And although the time has not vet come for a rational 
(as contrasted with an empirical) appraisement of the vir- 
tues of alcohol in disease; although it is still to the 
equivocal teachings of experience, checked only by a 
comparison of the physiological effects of the drug with 
the natural history of the particular malady, that we must 
exclusively appeal for a decision ; yet the materials aire 
at our disposal for such a decision si some hi 

which perhaps foreshadow more definite rules for our 
judgment. The specific effect of this drug on the nervous 
system, seems the key to its usefulness : and the casual 
condition of this organ, the fact which recommends or for- 
bids its administration in any variety or instance of dis- 
ease. The dose which rouses the exhausted brain of a 
feverous patient, and the dram which goads to frenzy the 
unmanageable circulation of a cerebral cicatrix — whether 
that cicatrix be the result of a wound from without, or of 
the effusion from inflamed or ruptured blood-vessels from 
within — alike illustrate this rule : as indeed would the 
coma which, as the maximum (or rather sequence") of this 



STDIULAXTS IN DISEASE. 451 

effect, would be observed, under similar circumstances, 
as the result of doses of alcohol equally diverse in their 
quantity. 

It is at least a negative merit of such a view, that its 
apparent simplicity is not likely to give rise to any dan- 
gerous or inaccurate routine of practice. On the con- 
traiy, it has the advantage of calling the most explicit 
attention to what is after all, in one form or another, the 
chief difficulty in deciding upon the administration of 
alcoholic and allied stimulants in various maladies. To 
distinguish between what will rouse, and what oppress, the 
nervous centre ; to decide whether alcohol will excite the 
brain to activity, or failing this, increase its oppression ; 
whether aether will stimulate the exhausted lungs to re- 
lieve themselves by an increased effort, or will only pros- 
trate them by increasing a task already disproportionate to 
their powers — this problem, the precise elements for the 
calculation of which are never alike in any two cases, and 
the practical answer to which no rules will ever enable our 
Profession to decide, is at least illustrated, as regards these 
alternatives, by the physiological action of alcohol. Nor 
is it too much to say that, in some instances, the two 
effects — the beneficial stimulation of the organ, and the 
hurtful accumulation of materials for its elimination — are 
so far likely to follow each other, as that we are compelled 
to balance the threats of the future against the promises 
of the present. It is sometimes difficult to persuade a 
patient struggling with a paroxysm of cardiac or pul- 
monary dyspnoea, that the aether which suddenly relieves 
him, may yet be doing him more harm than good. But 

G G 2 



452 CHOICE OF FOOD, OR DIET. 

it is impossible to doubt, either that this is occasionally the 
case, or that the fact that it is so often constitutes one of 
the very gravest responsibilities of the Physician in pre- 
scribing such stimulants. 

However this may be, there is one rule in the adminis- 
tration of these stimulants, which most Physicians would 
probably agree in ; and that is, the importance which fre- 
quently attaches to our obtaining the maximum amount 
and uniformity of exciting effect, in conjunction with the 
minimum of reaction and oppression in the organ sti- 
mulated. This object is evidently best attained by a great 
frequency, and (within certain limits) large dilution, of 
the dose; which may be thus limited to a small ab- 
solute quantity. Elimination is always a work of time; 
and, under circumstances otherwise equal, appears ta 
proceed at a tolerably uniform rate. And the sudden 
ingestion of a large dose is not only attended by great 
uncertainty as respects the exact time and degree of its 
absorption, and therefore of its direct effect ; but is calcu- 
lated to give rise to a dangerous reaction, in which an 
undue excitement is soon followed by a still more perilous 
exhaustion. 

One more suggestion, which applies to the administration 
of both food and stimulants in severe diseases, may conclude 
this cursory sketch. The varieties of constitutional pros- 
tration, which may be regarded as impeding secretion, and 
preventing Digestion, mainly in proportion to their inten- 
sity; agree in dictating the avoidance, as much as possible, 
of all ingesta demanding this process, on the one hand; 
and of all substances themselves liable to rapid deeom- 






AS INFLUENCED BY CONVALESCENCE. 453 

position, on the other. Hence beef-tea is generally pre- 
ferable to milk ; dilute spirits to wine, and still more to 
beer; starchy food is often objectionable; and solid pro- 
teinous substances are still more injurious. On the other 
hand, the convalescence, from acute illness, of a person 
previously healthy, will in most cases rapidly reverse these 
rules ; and indeed may be said in some sense to call for 
an enforcement of the very same rules as those applicable 
to the Diet of childhood. Just as, to the feelings of the 
convalescent, the days of his youth seem renewed, and a 
keen appreciation of every object of sense around him soon 
effaces the recollections of the long agony of his illness ; 
so as regards his Nutrition, an abundant appetite, and a 
rapid power of assimilation, perpetually claim his digestive 
function; and unless this be overladen by some casual 
excess or imprudence, soon build up his wasted organism 
to its pristine bulk and vigour. 



G G 3 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX A. 

— * — 

VOMITING.* 

" Vomiting, the next symptom of gastric derangement, is an 
act so closely connected with the healthy organisation of the 
stomach (indeed so definite a constituent of the Digestive process 
in many Vertebrata), that onr cursory view of the physiology of 
the stomach would have been incomplete, without such a brief 
description of its nature and mechanism as may be usefully re- 
called here. 

" Normally, the human stomach propels its contents onwards 
into the duodenum. But, under various abnormal circumstances, 
this direction is reversed, so that the gastric contents take a back- 
ward course through the oesophagus, re-enter the mouth, and are 
thence expelled the body. Such a reversal obtains in the acts of 
eructation, regurgitation, and vomiting. And these three acts, 
whatever their differences of detail, further agree in the conditions 
of their occurrence, in so far that they all require (1.) an open 
cardia ; (2.) a closed pylorus ; and (3.) a compressed stomach ; 
— compressed, that is, either by its own muscular contractions, 
or by some extrinsic pressure. 

" In eructation or belching, part of the gaseous content of the 
stomach is expelled from the mouth. How the cardia becomes 
patulous, it is not easy to decide. The stomach so frequently 

* From the Author's Treatise on " Diseases of the Stomach/' pp. 55 — 65. 

G G 4 



456 APPENDIX A. 

contains gases, and (as may be "well seen in vivisections) the 
cardia resists their expulsion so efficiently, that we can scarcely 
suppose this aperture would be opened by the mere evolution of 
any quantity of aeriform fluid in the stomach ; or would allow of 
any considerable leakage, save by a definite relaxation of its walls. 
The agents of the expulsive act are also somewhat doubtful. For 
though the act appears to coincide with an expiratory effort, and 
sometimes with even a closure of the glottis, yet the abdominal 
pressure thus brought to bear on the stomach is certainly by no 
means violent. But such mobile fluids would scarcely require 
any remarkable effort for their expulsion. Indeed, tli<<^e con- 
tractions of the stomach which are necessarily present when the 
act of eructation occurs during gastric digestion, appear quite 
sufficient to commence, if not to complete, the expulsion of _ 
from the organ.* 

" In regurgitation^ some of the liquid contents of the stomach 
are returned into the mouth. Thifi 

accidental complication of the preceding, u -mall quantity uf liquid 
being carried up the oesophagus together with an ernetati 
gaseous fluid. In other instances, however, the liquid arises al 
and so quietly, that it is only perceived when it reaches the ft 
and back of the tongue, where it- taste causes it 
It is probable that the nature of this expulsion is closely akin to 
that of eructation : the abdominal pressure playing, if anything, 
a still more subordinate part. 

" The act of vomiting differs from the two preceding, not only 
in the quantity and quality of the matters (solid as well as liquid ) 

* In voluntary eructation, a kind of twitch, quite unlike ordinary deglu- 
tition, introduces air from the pharynx into the upper end of the cesop 1 
whence it appears to he propelled into the stomach. Soon alter it r. . 
this organ, it seems to he returned through the still patulous cardia 
well-marked expiratory or abdominal pressure ; during which the glottis 
appears to he at least partially closed. And as the air thus artificially in- 
troduced into the stomach is often accompanied in its expulsion by part of 
the gases previously contained in the organ, the voluntary and invok: 
forms of eructation almost mertre into each other. 












APPENDIX A. 457 

which it expels from the stomach, and in the far greater energy 
and completeness of the expulsive efforts, but also in the fact — 
that a violent pressure, extrinsic to the organ, is the chief agent 
of the process. 

" As respects this abdominal pressure, it will be remembered 
that, in ordinary respiration, the viscera of the belly sustain but 
a moderate compression. For, during inspiration, the contraction 
and descent of the diaphragm exactly coincide with a relaxation 
of the muscular walls of the abdomen : while, during exspiration, 
the compression which these exercise is neutralised by the re- 
cession or ascent of the now relaxed diaphragm into the thorax. 
Hence the movable contents of the belly escape all violent pres- 
sure ; and merely transfer, as it were, a slight force from the 
upper to the anterior wall of this cavity, and conversely. But if, 
while the diaphragm remains depressed and contracted, the ab- 
dominal muscles also contract vigorously, the whole force of 
either of these two muscular strata may be regarded as compress- 
ing the viscera within the abdominal cavity. And since many 
of these viscera are hollow organs, enclosing movable contents, 
and communicating with the exterior of the body, such a forcible 
pressure must expel their contents, so soon as their terminal 
orifices are thrown open — whether by relaxing, or by yielding 
to a superior force. In this way the abdominal pressure plays an 
important part, not only in vomiting, but also in defalcation, mic- 
turition, and parturition ; — affording a powerful, though inter- 
mittent, force, in aid of those more continuous expulsive contrac- 
tions which are effected by the muscular walls of the rectum, the 
bladder, and the uterus respectively. 

11 There is ample evidence that the act of vomiting is effected 
mainly by this abdominal pressure ; which is not only indispen- 
sable to it, but (as proved by vivisections) suffices to effect it 
when reduced to a contraction of the diaphragm, or of the abdo- 
minal muscles, or even to a slight muscular compression of the 
hypochondria. 

" The exact aid given by the contraction of the stomach is less 
capable of determination. That any such assistance not only 



458 APPEXDIX A. 

can be, but often is, altogether dispensed with, it is scarcely 
possible to doubt. But, on the other hand, it seems equally cer- 
tain that the abdominal pressure, to which the act of vomiting is 
chiefly attributable, is often accompanied, and assisted, by a 
contraction of the muscular wall of the stomach itself. And as 
might be expected, observation on Man and animals during life 
shows that this contraction specially engages, not only the py- 
loric valve, but the neighbouring muscular pyloric extremity of 
the organ ; in movements which are probably rhythmic (con- 
traction alternating with relaxation), and peristaltic *, and which 
there is certainly no sufficient ground for supposing to be c 
anti-peristaltic. 

" The phenomena of the act itself quite confirm the conclusions, 
as to its strictly co-ordinate nature and ar Qt, arrived at 

by the physiological inquiry just summed up. Feelings of un- 
easino.% pain, or i a in the gastric - | -re- 

cede an increased flow of saliva, and a loathing 1. which 

soon heightens into downright nausea. To th symp- 

toms accede others of a cerebral import: giddi:. 
dimness of sight, or even headache. Next occur ret . rhich 

seem to open tin :id cardia, but not t< :.ded 

with any abdominal ] and which often hav :t of 

gradually distending the stomach with air, so as to facilitate the 
subsequent occurrence o{ vomiting. Finally, an uncontrolL 
impulse completely cbang action of the muscles of 

piration, and brings into one moment two contractions, which 
usually alternate with each other. An energetic closure of the 
glottis follows the descent of the diaphragm, so that this muscular 

* Assuming the analogy of this contraction to that verified by Dr. B 
mont in the human subject, and by myself in the Dog, during the 
active ^tage of gastric digestion — the rate of pen .1 the alterna- 

tion of contraction with relaxation, would not be at all incompatil 
constriction of the whole pyloric B8 st a : 

which would more than cover the time actually occupied by any - 
pulsive act during the ordinary fit of vomiting. C<H - art the " C 
of Anatomy," article Stomach. Suppl., p. 313. 



APPEXDIX A. 459 

septum is fixed by the distension of the thorax, as well as by the 
contraction of its own fibres. At the same time, the abdominal 
muscles contract violently upon the stomach ; and exercise a 
compression which not only expels its contents, but which, aided 
and increased by the contraction of various other muscles of the 
trunk, causes the head to become greatly congested. Hence the 
features become red and swollen ; and the large veins of the face, 
temples, and neck are visibly distended. The expulsion of the 
gastric contents is sometimes attended by considerable pain ; 
which appears referable to the lower end of the oesophagus, and 
is probably due to the spasmodic compression of this tube by the 
diaphragm.* The discharge of the matters vomited through the 
pharynx and mouth appears to be aided by a kind of reversal of 
the movements of ordinary deglutition. But if the act be violent, 
and the quantity of liquid large, these movements lack their or- 
dinary precision ; so that a part of the matters expelled generally 
eludes the curtain of the soft palate, and traverses the respiratory 
channel of the nasal fossae, to gush out of the nostrils. The 
subsequent phenomena vary with the origin of the vomiting. 
Where, as is often the case, it has a local cause, which is removed 
from the stomach by the act itself, the patient speedily recovers 
his normal condition. 

11 As regards the causes of vomiting, it is obvious that so com- 
plex and co-ordinate an act of various organs can only be ac- 
complished through the intervention of that cerebro-spinal centre 
from which the nerves of these organs radiate. And hence we 
may distinguish these causes into two classes: — one in which 
the irritation provoking the act originates at the nervous centre ; 
and one in which, arising at the periphery, it is transmitted 
thence to the centre, to be reflected into the various organs which 
effect the expulsive process. The first class is illustrated by the 
vomiting of cerebral injury or disease, as well as by the vomiting 
sometimes resulting from mental emotion : the second, not only 

* As is shown by the fact, that a similar pain may be produced, inde- 
pendently of vomiting, by a voluntary abdominal pressure with a closed 
glottis. 



460 APPENDIX A. 

by that ordinary form of vomiting which is excited by a direct 
irritation of the stomach itself, but by the numerous cases in 
which it follows an irritation of kindred or even dissimilar tex- 
tures — such as irritation of the fauces, intestines, or perito- 
neum; disgusting sights, sounds, or smells: prolonged immersion 
in cold water ; and even wounds of the extremities. 

" But even in the second of these classes, the act of vomiting can 
only be regarded as ' reflex,' with two important qualifications. 
Firstly, there are good grounds for believing that a large number 
of emetic substances are not only quite as active when inje 
directly into the blood as when merely introduced into the 
mach; but that, as shown by Magendie's : experiment, 

(in which Tartar-emetic injected into the blood < f a 1)' _ 
copious vomiting from a bladder which had been substituted for 
the stomach), whatever their local action on the stomach in the 
latter of these two cases, it is to a direct influence on tin 
centre that the act of vomiting must chiefly tx 
secondh% though, in those numen cu aes wl Am £ 

cause is a mechanical irritation, the phenomena of \ suf- 

ficiently indicate the medulla oblongata to be th :it of the 

cerebro-spinal centre in which reflection towards the periphery 
occurs, still the ensuing movement is by no means a simple n 
act. On the contrary, it is effected by the concurrent a 
so many organs, and with such characteristic and definite chai 
in their ordinary times, modes, and degrees of activity — the whole 
process is so complex, and so truly co-ordinate — that, far from 
limiting our attention to the reflected course which its exciting 
cause sometimes takes, we ought rather to regard this as quite 
a subordinate feature : and view the act of vomiting as an invo- 
luntary or physical nervous action of the highest order. 

" Such a view of the nature of vomiting receives a remarkable 
illustration from an experiment of mine on the action of Tartar- 
emetic *, which conclusively shows what we may almost sp 

* For the results of this experiment, made in the year 1850, see the 
article Stomaeh, "Cyclopaedia of Anatomy;*' and "The Lancet " for 1Sj3, 
vol. ii. p. odd. 



APPEXDIX A. 401 

as an object, a purpose, or at any rate a function, of this complex 
process. On injecting a solution of Tartar-emetic into the super- 
ficial femoral vein of a Dog, the mineral was found ten minutes 
after in the fluid contents of the stomach, and in a state of con- 
centration much exceeding that in which it must have been min- 
gled with the mass of the blood. In this instance, too, the poison 
had produced extreme prostration, but no vomiting. Taken in 
conjunction with Magendie's experiment already alluded to, it 
proves that the poison may first be secreted by the stomach into 
its cavity, and then removed from this cavity, by two processes 
which are essentially independent of each other, and of any local 
effect of the secreted drug, however aided by it. A similar 
process of secretion probably obtains in the case of the salts of 
other metals, as well as in that of various organic poisons : — the 
concurrence of such a process with the act of vomiting thus ren- 
dering the latter an element of the vis medicatrix Naturce — an act 
by which the organism throws out a deadly poison like antimony, 
perhaps even a dangerous disease like fever.* 

" In some instances, the process of vomiting returns differ ent 
portions of the gastric contents at different periods of time ; so 
that, for example, the expulsion of a comparatively homogeneous 
fluid is followed, after a considerable interval, by that of crude 
masses of undigested food. Some of these cases perhaps depend 
on a peculiar hour -glass shape of the organ, or on a similar (but 
more temporary) shape produced by the muscular contraction of 
its middle, isolating part of the contents for a variable period. But 
most of them are probably referable to the weight, bulk, and 
situation of the substances contained in the stomach, and to the 
other mechanical circumstances which regulate the act of vomit- 
ing itself. The last efforts of a prolonged vomiting often bring 
up bile. But though there is nothing abnormal in the mere pre- 
sence of this secretion in the fasting stomach, still the above cir- 
cumstances show that its being vomited in comparative purity is 

* Compare the author's "Essay on the Treatment of Continued Fever," 
" The Lancet," loc. cit 



462 APPENDIX A. 

generally an indication of the completeness or duration of the 
expulsive process. It is probably during the intervals of ener- 
getic vomiting, that it finds its way through the pylorus into the 
stomach. It may, however, be doubted whether the pylorus is 
always strictly occluded at the exact moment of the expulsive act; 
especially in those cases in which the intestines are themselves 
distended with fluid, such as must necessarily be exposed to the 
same pressure as the contents of the gastric cavity. 

" In alluding to vomiting as a symptom of gastric disturbance, 
we must begin by conceding that c ur. in which 

the vital powers are rapidly exhausted by violent i [uent 

vomiting, that defies all our efforts to relieve or arrest it : and in 
which our complete uncertain 1 of this vomiting 

during the life of the patient is little affected by a i 
showing no apparent lesion in the stomach, ;) in 

any organ of the body. We cannot therefore augur th 
origin of vomiting from its I : nay, 

more, we must n ect that any this 

symptom — such as its excitement by $ 
by pain, or even its expelling blood — will i 
its reference to the stomach. 

" One general rule respecting it we may, wn. 

While it is to the agg that we hav< 

for our diagnosis of the cause of vomiting in any _ 
may, I think, be propounded, that the facility with which an 
irritation produces vomiting varies (other thi _ uaf) with 

the closeness of alliance between the stomach and the im- 
part. For example, vomiting is excited nn i atly and 
readily by an irritation of the duodenum or pharynx, than I 
irritation of the jejunum or mouth respectively : and agai] 
irritation of the small intestine rather than of the large : of the 
mucous rather than of the peritoneal coat, throughout the whole 
canal ; of the brain rather than of the integuments. C 
(as may be noticed in pleurisy, pericarditis, aneurisms, and various 
endocardial lesions"), vomiting is a grave symptom in many thoracic 
diseases, because (still ceteris paribus only) it implies a more 



APPENDIX A. 463 

serious mischief than would suffice to produce it in lesions of the 
abdominal cavity. 

" In the present state of our knowledge, we may usefully group 
these facts by the conjecture that, whatever the kind of cerebral 
disturbance necessary for the production of vomiting, a certain 
degree of irritation of afferent branches of the sympathetic sys- 
tem will generally suffice to excite it ; and with a facility which 
appears to be, on the whole, tolerably proportionate to the close- 
ness with which these branches are related to that great prever- 
tebral centre of the abdominal sympathetic, formed by the semi- 
lunar ganglia and the solar plexus. 

" Among the vomitings produced by gastric derangements, we 
may distinguish the following varieties. Firstly, the vomiting 
brought about by sheer destruction of tissue, involving an ab- 
normal irritation of the nerves laid bare at the seat of lesion : — 
a variety exemplified in simple and malignant ulceration, in 
wounds of the stomach, in corrosive poisoning ; and characterised 
(as might be expected) by a remarkable amenability to the phy- 
sical or chemical properties of substances brought into contact 
with the injured nerves (as in the ingestion of food). Secondly, 
the vomiting of obstruction, which is referable, not so much to 
the mere obstruction, as to the distension and violent muscular 
movement which is gradually brought about behind the occluded 
part ; and which therefore varies, not only with the strictness of 
the occlusion, but with its proximity to the pylorus, its super- 
ficial extent, its disposition relatively to the muscular coat, and 
other circumstances of this kind. This variety of vomiting is 
often seen in cancer, and (a still better exanxple) in cicatrised 
ulcer, of the stomach. Thirdly, a kind of vomiting in which 
the gastric distension present appears mainly referable to a loss of 
contractile power by the muscular coat of the stomach (the 
structure of the organ remaining unchanged) ; and in which we 
must often doubt whether this failure of contractility is not caused 
by some nervous lesion itself answerable for the vomiting — 
whether, in short, the distension of the stomach is simply con- 
current, or really causative in the process." 



464 



APPENDIX B. 



APPENDIX B, 



DIETARIES. 



1. OF SOLDIEKS. 



According to Froude (History of England;, the commissariat 
of the English army which invaded Scotland under Somerset, in 
the reign of Edward the Ylth, was arranged for the - 
each soldier daily, of 2 lbs. meat, 1 lb. bread, 1 pint imp. wine. 

At present the daily allowance to the English soldier on home 
service is 1 lb. bread, and J lb. meat, daily. Other provi- 
he finds for himself. 

The daily ration in the army of the United Si ited 

(Olmsted, Our Slav. 1856) to be 1 J lb. I 

bread, 1\ oz. sugar, | oz. coffee, and 1 ^ tll quarl 

The scale of victualling for soldiers on the voyage to India, 
fixed by the East India Company, is as follows Pereira n I 
and Diet, p, 482):— 



For Two days 

For One Day 
For Three Days 

For One Day 
For Seven Days 



{ Beef ♦, Two Pieces, or 
- Flour - 
( Suet - 

' Preserved Meat - 



16 1b. 
5 lb. 
1 lb. 

Gib. 
3 lb. 

18 lb. 

5 Pints 



CPr. 
I Ki. 

ri 

( Pease 

! Flour - - - - - f> lb. 
Suet - - - - - | lb. 
Plums - .-- 1$ lb. 

fl 



Mustard 

Biscuit 

Tea - 

Sugar (crushed) 

Vinegar 

Best London Porter 



|Ib. 

3 lb. 
1 lb. 

6 lb. 
3 Pints 
42 Pints J 



For a Mess of Six 
Men per Week. 



Water at the rate of Seven Pints per man per day. for twenty weeks : this quantity 
covers Wastage. Lemon Juice at the rate of One Quart per man lor the Voyage out. 
The allowance of Porter to be exclusive of Wastage. 

Fresh TWf or Mutton to be issued to the Troops when procurable ; 1£ lb. per man per 
day, with Vegetables for the Soup, and Oatmeal. 

* New India Beef and New India Pork of British curing. 






APPEXDIX B. 



465 





QUANTITIES FOR EACH 


MAI 


* PER DAY 


















p 




a 


r3 

J! 2 




'3 


G ■- 

O 1) 
■2 t, 


a 




CO 

5» 


•d 


I 




A 

oz. 


OZ. 


02 

oz. 


0%. 


oz. 






5 
lb. 


3 


j£ 


3 


A 




§ 


.s 


#. 


|rf. 


lb. 


lb. 


JO/5 


/&. 


to*. 


Sunday 
Monday 
Tuesday 


21| 


6§ 
»3§ 


1§ 

2 


4 


16 




- 


- 




1 
1 
1 


u 

e 

s- a. 


■A • 

11 


Its* 


IF°- 


V: ednesday 


— 


— 


— 


— 


16 







— 


1=5 5, 


1 


Sfe 


i. a 


s ?r 


c o g 


Thursday - 
Friday 


2I| 


G§ 


«§ 


— 


I 




1 


1 




1 




Is 


2 a 




y a> a> 


Saturday 





— 


— 


— 


16 


"7^ 





— 


iO 


1 


_ 


£•.£ 


5^ 














** 










— ' 


r^ X hH 



N. B. Women receive the same rations as Men, and Children half the ration, with the 
exception of Beer, hall the ration only being allowed to Women. 
The Porter to be in Hogsheads when the number of Persons is under 120. 



DAILY MEALS. 



Breakfast 
Dinner - 
Supper - 



- Biscuits, Tea and Sugar. 

- According to the above Scale. 

- Biscuits, Tea and Sugar. 



2. OF THE NAVY. 

(Dr. John Wilson. Statistical Eeports on the Health of the 
Navy, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, March 
24, 1840): — 

There shall be allowed to every person serving in his Majesty's ships the following 
daily quantities of provisions ; viz. 

Bread -----------lib. 

Beer --- I gallon. 

Cocoa - - - - - - - - - - - loz. 

Sugar l* oz. 

Fresh meat -------- -.lib. 

and 
Vegetables ---------- | lb. 

Tea ioz. 

When fresh meat and vegetables are not issued, there shall be allowed, in lieu thereof, 

Salt beef - § lb. ) £ 

and S.-3 

Flour f lb. j « 

or Salt pork - - - - - § lb. ) £ 

and > S 

Peas | pint. ) < 

And weekly, whether fresh or salt meat is used. 

f Oafmpal t fi ninf- ( For occasional use when required, 

A quantity of J vfr^iTr C not exceeding } f £ ™ : { but not to be considered as subject 
t vinegar J 1 5 pint j tQ be paid fQr wheQ uQt ^^ 

H H 



46G 



APPENDIX B. 



The following scheme shows the proportion of provisions with salt meat for each man 
for 14 days. 



1 




















Oatmeal 


Days of the Week. 


Bread 


Beer. 


Sugar. 


Cocoa. 


Tea. 


Beef. 


Pork. 


Flour. 


Pea>. 


and 
Vinegar. 




lb. 


gall. 


oz. 


oz. 


cz. 


lb. 


lb. 


lb 


I :r.t. 


Per pint. 


Sunday - 


1 




I| 


I 


A 
4 


3 

4 


— 


2 
4. 


— 


" 


Monday - 


1 




U 


1 


1 
* 


— 


§ 


— 


h 




Tuesday - 


1 




l| 


1 


1 
¥ 


3 
4 


— 


3 
4 


— 




Wednesday 


1 




H 


1 


* 


— 


1 


— 


£ 


I * 


Thursday - 


1 




H 


1 


1 
4 


2. 
4 


— 


I 


— 




> 


Friday ... 


1 




H 


1 


i 


— 


3 
4 


— 


* 


c 



Saturday - 


1 
1 






1 


i 

4 


3 
4 

1 




3 
4 

1 
4 


i 


plained 1 


Sunday - 


Monday - 


1 




U 


1 


1 
4 


— 


» 


— 


— 


X 

- 


Tuesday - 


1 




I5 


1 


1 


1 
4 


— 


a 

4 


i 




Wednesday 


1 




4 


1 


4 


— 




— 






Thursday - 


1 




H 


1 


1 
4 


* 
4 


— 


2 
I 






Friday - 


1 




H 


1 


4" 


— 


4 


— 


— 




Saturday - 
Proportion for 14 days 


1 




H 


14 


i 


4 


— 


4 


1 




H 


14 


21 


3$ 


5i 




5| 


H 1 



On the days in which flour is ordered to be issued, suet, and raisins or currants, may be 
substituted for a portion of the flour. 

1 lb. of raisins being considered equal to 1 lb. of flour. 
a lb. of currants ) 

or \- 

$ :b. of suet ) 



- ditto 



ditto. 



Change of sonic species of Provisions for others, as the Service may require. 

And incase it should be found necessary to alter any of the species of provisions before 
mentioned, and to issue others as their substitutes, it is to be observed, that 
1£ lb. of soft bread, - - O 

in »e J&L l is to De considered equal to 1 lb. of 

lib. of nee, f biscuit. 

1 lb. of flour J 

1 pint of wine, - - - - ( i s to be considered equal to 1 gallon 
m i of beer. 

" Ms to be considered equal to 1 02. of 
1 cocoa. 
i oz. ol tea - - - - - ) 

1 lb. of rice, 1 

J is to be considered equal to 1 pint of 
' } peas. 

-J 

f is to be considered equal to 1 
~\ of oatmeal. 

f" is to be considered equal to 1 lb. of 
" ? sugar. 

C are to be considered equal to 1 lb. of 
"I cocoa. 



i pint of spirits 
1 oz. of coffee, 



1 pint of Calavances, 

or 
1 pint of Dholl - 

1 lb. of rice - 

1 lb. of butter 

2 lbs. of cheese 

t lb. of onions, 

or 
i lb. of leeks 



:}■ 



is to be considered equal to 1 I 
other vegetables. 



APPENDIX B. 



467 



The large ration of beer has been altogether superseded since 
1831. Wine is only issued on the Cape of Good Hope Station. 
After fourteen days' use of salt food, lemon-juice, with an addi- 
tional allowance of sugar, is issued as an antiscorbutic. 



3. OF EMIGBAXTS. 

(As fixed by Her Majesty's Colonial Land and Emigration 
Commissioners, and quoted by Dr. Pereira, op. cit.) : — 

The Passengers to be in Messes of six or more, as the Surgeon may determine ; and to 
be victualled according to the following Scale, for one Adult : — 



Days. 


= 

i 


I 


M 

o 

lb. 


•a 

■ 

II 

££ 

lb. 


j5 
lb. 


s 
- 

oz. 


3 
00 

OZ. 


oj 
1 


/o. 


• 

ox. 


O 

u 

02. 


a 


P 

OZ 


to 

Qts. 


c 

P/. 


3 
a 

ox. 


15 
0£. 




lb lb. 


Sunday - - 


i 





_ 


4 


i 


2 


H 


— 


4 


l 


__ 


i 





3 


>> 


>> 




Monday 


3 
4 


— 


1 




i 

4 


— 


— 


i 


— 




J 


— 


3 


3 






2 


Tuesday 


4 


1 


— 


— 


i 


2 


H 


— 


1 
4 


4 


— 


4 


— 


3 


* 


£ 


s 
£ 


Wednesday 


4 


— 


1 


— 


i 
■i 


— 


— 


3 


— 


— 


1 


— 


— 


3 


G 


o 


■ 


Thursday - 


i 


— 


- 


i 


i 

4 


2 


'i 


— 


1 
4 


i 


— 


1 
4 


— 


3 


S. 


3 
O 


o 

c 


Friday - - 


4 


— 


* 


— 


1 
4 


— 


— 


3 


1 
« 


— 


1 


— 


3 


3 




c 


3 

o 


Saturday - 


4 


i 


— 


— 


4 


2 


14 


— 


— 


4 


— 


~ 


— 


3 


<m 




(M 



* The Biscuit must not be of a more inferior description than the second quality of 
that article, 
t Prime new Irish East India Beef, and prime mess Pork, 
t During the first month 1£ lbs. of Potatoes may be substituted for £ lb. of Rice. 

Women, and Children of 14 years and upwards, to receive the same rations as Men ; 
Children from 7 to 14 to receive two-thirds, and Children from 1 to 7 years of age to 
receive one-half, of the above quantities. 

The Children between 1 and 7 shall, three times a week, receive 4 oz. of Rice, or 3 oz. 
of Sago, each, in lieu of their salt Meat. 

Children under twelve months receive no rations. 

One pound of fresh Meat and one pound of soft Bread per adult, to be issued, with a 
suitable quantity of Vegetables, until one day after passing the Downs, and whenever 
opportunity shall offer, in lieu of the salt and preserved Meat, and of the Flour, Suet and 
Raisins, Rice and Pease. 



H H 2 



468 



APPENDIX B. 



4. OF PAUPERS. 

NEWPORT PAGNEL UNION WORKHOUSE. 
Dietary for Able-bodied Men and Women. 





Breakfast. 


Dinner. 




Supper. 


i 

H 

02. 


2 
pts. 


02. 


ii 

a. — 
> 2 

lb. 


i- 

o 
/. 


-= 

m 

pq 

02. 


c .E 


1 
33 


i | 


ox. 


02. 


oe. pa 


Sunday 4 Men - - - - 
<■ \\ omen • 


7 
5 




5 
5 


1 
1 





™ 


— 


7 
5 


- 4 

- ii 


Monday . P Ien - - - - 

t-Women - 


7 
5 




— 


_ 


4 


2 
2 


: 


7 
5 


; 


— 


Tuesday. - P Ien - - - - 
(. ^\ omen ... 


7 
5 




5 
5 


1 
1 


— 





_ 


7 

* 




■i 


Wednesday P len " 

(■ Women ... 


7 

5 


4 





— 


— 


— 


14 
IS 


7 


i — 

i _ 


Thursday -P Ien - - - - 
(• \\ (mien ... 


7 
5 


i| 


5 
5 


1 

1 





— 


__ 


7 
5 


- ii 


t? j C Men .... 

Fridiy - j 

C Women ... 


7 

5 










u 


I 
1 





7 
5 


i 
i 


- 


Saturday -P' e " ■ - - - 
C \\ omen - . - 


7 
5 




— 


— 


- 


— 


14 
12 


7 


i 


- 



Aged and infirm inmates may be allowed 1 pint of t tngar and butter, for break. 

fast, in lieu of the gruel prescribed by the above Table. Children above the age of nine 
years, and under the age of sixteen years, allowed tiie same quantities :;i the 

above Table. 

Sick as directed by the Medical Officer. 

Dietary for Children under Years of Age. 







Children from '. 


to5Y 
















Breakf.st. 




Dinner. 








s 




■d 
■ 


i 


■a 

I 
PC 


£ 


1 

2 




= 

3 

— 
= 
- 


- 

m 


a 1 


_ 

— « 


ox. 


pint. 


02 


pint. 


02. 


lb. 


lb. 






pint. 


Sunday - 


4 


ft 


- 


— 


3 


1 


— 




1 


\ 


Monday • 


4 


* 


2 


ft 


— 


— 


— 




A 


1 


Tuesday - 


4 


i 

9 


- 


— 


3 


* 


— 




i 
I 


1 


Wednesday - 


4 


A 
1 


— 


— 


— 


— 


a 


4 


i 


1 


Thursday - 


4 


1 


— 


— 


3 


1 


— 




a 

4 


* 


Friday - 


4 


A 

a 


2 


1 






— 




1 


* 


Saturday - 


4 


k 


— 


— 


— 


~ 


l 
5 




' 


i 






APPENDIX B. 



469 



Children from 5 to 9 Years. 




Breakfast. 


Dinner. t 


Supper. 




1 


SI 

n 


O 
03 


S 


of -Q 
>5 


c 


T3 
0) 


u 

O 


-a 

G 


O 

n 


oz. 


pint. 


OX. 


pint. 


ox. 


ta 


02. 


oz. 


02. 


pm^ . 


pints. 


Sunday - 


5 


i 

3 


— 


— 


4 


i 

5 


— 


4 


- 


— 


* 


Monday - 


5 


1 


2 


1 


— 


— 


— 


4 


i 

2 


i 


— 


Tuesday - 


5 


2 


— 


— 


4 


1 
'J 


— 


4 


— 


— 


* 


Wednesday 


5 


i 


- 


- 


— 


— 


10 


4 


1 


i 

2 


— 


Thursday 


5 


i 


— 


— 


4 


1 
2 


— 


4 


— 


— 


4 


Friday - 


5 


i 

a 


2 


1 


— 


— 


— 


4 


1 


1 
2 


— 


Saturday - 


5 


l 
5 


— 


— 


— 


— 


10 


4 


2 


1 

5 


— 



Infants under two years dieted at discretion. 



MERE UNION. 

Dietary for Able-bodied Men and Women. 





Breakfast. 






D 


inner. 




Supper. 


n 


o 

3 O 


"2« 

o £ 




i- 
9 
o 
as 


n 

111 
10 


u 


01 

0) 

A 
O 


t5 




O 

o 

s 

o 

PL, 




02. 


;^s. 


02. 


tt. 


pts. 


02. 


02. 


02. 


02. 


02. 


ff>. 


Sunday . P Ten - " 
I Women - 


7 
6 




— 


— 





— 


7 
6 


11 

4 


7 
6 


*2 

1* 





Monday - P Ien - ' 
c Women - 


7 
6 




3 
3 


1 
1 


— 


8 
7 


__ 


— 


7 
6 


*2 
J 1 





Tuesday - P len " " 
t Women - 


7 
G 




— 


— 




- 


6 
5 


— 


7 
G 


1 1 
*2 





Wednesday [ Men 

(■ Women - 


7 
6 


1 1 

J 2 


— 


— 


— 


16 
14 


I 


z 


7 
6 


1 1 

J 3 
11 

l 2 


__ 


Thursday P* en " " 
t Women - 


7 
6 




3 
3 


1 
1 





8 
7 


— 


- 


7 
G 


H 

1 1 

'a 


— 


Friday - [ Men " " 
c Women - 


7 
6 




— 


__ 


1 1 

1 2 


— 


G 
5 


— 


7 
6 


] l 
1 1 

*2 


— 


Saturday -* Men " " 
I Women - 


7 
6 




- 


— 


- 


16 
14 


— 


- 


6 


1 1 
2 

1 1 






H H 3 



470 



APPENDIX B. 
Table A. Children from 2 to 5. 





Breakfast. 


Dinner. 


Supper. 










I 




























ja 


fcc 




















M 


- c 


§ 


i 


£ 


~ 


S.c 




« 


-i 


i 


:* 








4 
- 


1 

> 


x E. 


i 


ll 




X 


1 


= 


11 




02. 


pts. 


02. 


OX. 


/',. 


02. 


02. 


tff. 


OX. 




02. 


ox. 


;,-c. 


Sunday - 


4 




— 


— 


_ 


_ 


— 


8 


1 


4 


i 


1 


Monday - 


4 


1 3 


— 


I 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 


4 


i 

4 


1 


Tuesday - 


4 


1 - 


— 


— 


— 


4 


I 


— 


— 


4 


1 




Wednesday - 


4 


1 - 





— 


x 


— 


— 





_ 


4 


i 


* 


Thursday - 


4 


1 3 


— 


i 












4 


1 


1 


Friday - 


4 


1 - 


— 


— 




4 


§ 


— 


— 


4 


\ 


i 


Saturday - 


4 


1 - 


3 


I 




— 


— 


— 


— 


4 


i 


1 



Table B. Children from 5 to 9. 





Breakfast. 


:.er. 


Supper, j 


■= 


i 


- s 


j 


i 


C 

- -£ 

i.e. 


j 


m utton 
Broth. 

it,,,-. 


/. 


2 


i 


* 




02. 


pts. 


1 




lb. OX. 






:. 


x. 


B. 




Sunday • - 


5 


1 


- 


— 


- — 


— 


— u 


1 


5 


1 


1 


Monday - 


5 


3 
4 


4 


— 


1 - 


_ 


- - 


— 


' 


1 


■ 
1 


Tuesday - 


5 


f 


— 


- 


— — 


5 


f - 


— 


5 


1 


1 

* 


Wednesday • 


5 


4 


— 


— 


- 10 




— 


5 


1 


» 

4 


Thursday - 


5 


1 

4 


•4 


— 


_ 

4 


— 


— _ 


— 


5 


1 


f 
« 


Friday - 


5 t 


— 


— 


— — 


5 


f - 


— 


5 


1 


I 


Saturday - 


6 1 


— 


4 


4 


— 




— 


' 


1 


3 
4 



Old people of 60 years of age and upwards may be allowed two pints of tea per day with 
milk or sugar, in lieu of gruel, with 4 ounces of butter, and 4 ounces of cheese per week, if 
deemed expedient to make this change. Children under 2 years of age may be dieted at 
discretion. Sick to be dieted as directed by the Medical Officer. 



5. OF SLAVES. 

The weekly allowance of negroes (Olmsted, op. ciif.) in the 
Southern States is about 1^- — 1-J. peeks of Indian corn, or ita 
meal, and 3 — oh lbs. of bacon or pork. Other food is. howc 

often added by themselves : — 



APPENDIX B. 471 



6. OF PRISONERS. 

Table of Dietaries for Prisoners, as certified by the Right 
Honourable Sir George Grey, Bart. M.P. one of Her Majesty's 
Principal Secretaries of State, on the 15th day of June, 1857. 

CLASS 1. 

Convicted Prisoners sentenced to any term not exceeding Seven Days : — 

Males. Females* 

Breakfast Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. 

Dinner Bread - - - - 1 lb. Bread - - - - 1 lb. 

Supper Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. 

CLASS II. 

Convicted Prisoners sentenced to any term exceeding Seven Days, and not exceeding 
Twenty-one Days :— 

Males. Females. 

Breakfast Oatmeal Gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmeal Gruel - - 1 pint. 

Bread - - - - Goz. Bread - - - - 6 oz. 

Dinner Bread - - - - 12 oz. Bread - 6 oz. 

Supper Bread - 6 oz. Bread - - - - 6 oz. 

Oatmeal Gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmeal Gruel - - 1 pint. 

Prisoners of this Class employed at hard labour to have, in addition, one pint of soup per 
week. 

CLASS III. 

Convicted Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms exceeding Twenty-one Days, but 
not more than Six Weeks ; and convicted prisoners not employed at hard labour for terms 
exceeding Twenty one Days, but not more than Four Months : — 

Daily. 





Males. 




Females. 


Breakfast 


Oatmeal gruel 
Bread - 


- 1 pint. Oatmeal gruel 

- 6 oz. Bread - 


- 1 pint 

- 6oz. 






Sunday and Thursday. 






Dinner 


Soup - 
Bread - 


- 1 pint. Sonp - 

- 8 oz. Bread - 


- 


- 1 pint. 

- 6 oz. 



Tuesday and Saturday. 

Dinner Cooked meat, without bone 3 oz. Cooked meat, without bone 3 oz. 

Bread - 8 oz. Bread - - - - 6 oz. 

Potatoes - - - - | lb. Potatoes - - - - A lb. 

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 

Dinner Bread - 8 oz. Bread - - - - 6 oz. 

Potatoes - - - 1 lb. Potatoes - - ] lb. 

Daily. 
Supper Same as Breakfast. Same as Breakfast. 

H H 4 



472 



APPENDIX B. 



CLASS IV. 

Convicted Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms exceeding Six Weeks, but not 
more than Four Months; and Convicted Prisoners not employed at hard labour for terms 
exceeding Four Months : — 

Daily. 
Males. Females. 

Breakfast Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. 

Bread - - - - 8 oz. Bread - - - - 6 oz. 

Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. 
Dinner Cooked meat, without bone 3 oz. Cooked meat, without bone 3 oz. 



Dinner 



Potatoes 
Bread - 


- i lb. Potatoes 

- 8 oz. ] Bread 


- 


- lib. 

- b oz. 


Malet. 


Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 


Females. 




Soup - 
Bread - 


- 1 pint. Soup - 

- 8 oz. Bread - 


- 


1 pint. 

G oz. 



Supper 



Same as Breakfast. 



Same as Breakfast. 



CLASS V. 
Convicted Prisoners employed at hard labour for terms exceeding Four Months : — 
Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. 
Males. Females. 

Breakfast Oatmeal gruel - - 1 pint. Oatmpal gruel - - 1 pint. 

Bread - s ox. I - - - - G oz. 

Dinner Cooked meat, without bone 4 as. I oked meat, without bone 3oz. 

Potatoes - 1 lb. Potatoes - 

Bread - - - - G oz. Bread- .--- 

Monday. Wednmday. and Friday. 



Breakfast One pint of cocoa, made of ^ oz. 
of flaked cocoa or cocoa nibs, 
sweetened with \ oz. of mo- 
lasses or sugar. 
Bread - - - - 8 oz. 
Dinner Soup - 1 pint. 

Potatoes - - - 1 lb. 
Bread - - - - G oz. 

Daily. 



One pint of cocoa, made of f oz. 
of flaked eocoa or cocoa nibs, 

■ ith f oz. of mo- 

Bread • - - -6 oz. 

- 1 pint. 
P tatoei 
Bread .... 



Supper 



Oatmeal gruel 
Bread . 



- 1 pint. 

- 8 oz. 



Oatmeal gruel 
Bread - 



- 1 pint. 

- 6 oz. 



CLASS VI. 

Prisoners sentenced by Court to Solitary Confinement : — 
Males. 

The ordinary diet of their respective classes. 



Females, 
The ordinary diet of their respective 
II B. 



CLASS VII. 



Prisoners for Trial and Examination. Misdemeanants of the First Division, who do not 
maintain themselves, and Destitute Debtors: — 

Males. Fern a Its. 

The same as Class IV. The same as Class IV. 

CLASS VIII. 

Debtors committed under the Sth and 9th Vict., cap. 1'27. and 9th and 10th Vict., cap. M ; 
Fraudulent Debtors committed by Commissioners of Bankrupts under the Bankruptcy 
Laws : and Debtors remanded for Fraud from Insolvent Debtors' Courts : 
Males. Fer; 

The same as Class III. The same as Class III. 



APPENDIX B. 473 

CLASS IX. 

Prisoners in close confinement for Prison Offences for terms not exceeding Three 
Days: — 

1 lb. of bread per Diem. 

Prisoners in close confinement for Prison Offences under the provisions of the 42nd 
Section of the Gaol Act : — 

Daily. 



Males. 










Females. 




Breakfast Bread - 


. 


. 


- 8 oz. 


Bread - 


- 


- 


- 6 oz. 


Gruel - 


- 


. 


- 1 pint. 


Gruel - 


- 


. 


- 1 pint 


Dinner Bread - 


. 


- 


- 8 oz. 


Bread - 


. 


. 


- 6oz. 


Supper Bread - 


- 


. 


- 8 oz. 


Bread - 


. 


- 


- 6 oz. 


Gruel - 


- 


- 


- 1 pint. 


Gruel - 


- 


- 


- 1 pint 



Ingredients of Soup and Gruel — The Soup to contain, per pint, 3 ounces of cooked meat, 
without bone, 3 ounces of potatoes, 1 ounce of barley, rice, or oatmeal, and 1 ounce of 
onions or leeks, with pepper or salt. The Gruel to contain 2 ounces of oatmeal per pint. 
The Gruel on alternate days to be sweetened with f ounce of molasses, or sugar, and sea- 
soned with salt. In seasons when the potato crop has failed, 4 ounces of split peas made 
into a pudding maybe occasionally substituted ; but the change must not be made more 
than twice in each week. Boys under fourteen years of age to be placed on the same diet 
as females. 

At various prisons — for instance, the Hulks, Coldbath Fields, 
Millbank — the diet of class 5 is enriched by the addition of 1 to 
2 oz. of meat, and ^ pint of soup, daily, as well as modified by 
the substitution of cocoa for the gruel at breakfast. 

IRISH PRISONERS. 

(Lieutenant Boyd, Governor of Londonderry Gaol. From the " Times " of March 29, 

1861.) 

Prisoners committed for more than One Month, and aged 
More than 15 years. 
Breakfast f females 7 \ 07 " oatmeal and ] P int of buttermilk. 
Dinner [ f^l\es 12] oz ' bread ' [f ] pint newmilk - 

Less than 15 years. 
Breakfast females ? 5 oz - bread, and 1 pint buttermilk. 
Dinner 5 Females i 8 oz " bread ' and 1 oz ' oatmeal in gruel. 

Potatoes, for [p^ies 3* ] lbs * may be substituted for bread. 
Gruel must be substituted for milk 2 days a week. 



474 



APJPEXDIX B. 



7. OF HOSPITAL-PATIENTS. 

ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL, LONDON. 



Soup Diet. 



Milk Diet. 



Simple Diet. 



12 oz. of bread. 

| oz. of butter. 

8 oz. of beef 

or 

mutton, 

when dressed ; 

roasted or boiled. 

on 
alternate days. 

£lb. of potatoes, 

or 

green vegetable- 

in spring and 

summer 
occasionally. 

2 pts. of beer 

(Men.) 
1 pt. of beer 
( Women ) 

1 pint of tea with 

milk and sugar 

at breakfast and 

at tea. 

Broth on boiled 

meat days for 

supper. 



When porter is ordered, beer to 
be omitted. 



12 oz. of bread. 

| oz. of butter. 

4 oz. of beef 

or 

mutton 

when dressed ; 

roasted orboiled, 

on 
alternate days. 

i lb. of potatoes 

or 

^reen vegetables 

in spring and 

summer 
occasionally. 

1 pint of beer. 



1 pint of tea with 

milk and sugar 

at breakfast and 

at tea. 

Broth on boiled 

meat days lor 
supper. 



12 oz. of bread, 
foz. of butter. 



12oz.ofbread. 12oz. ofbread 



f oz. of butter. 



I oz. of butter. 



1 pint of tea 1 pint of tea | pint of tea 
with milk and with milk and with milk and 



6 oz. ofbread. 

1 pint of barley 

water 
or 

gruel 
for each meal. 



sugar at 

breakfast and 

at tea. 



1 pint of beef 

tea strong 

enough to 

form a jelly 

when cold, — 

with half 
allowance of 
rice or bread 
pudding for 
dinner, and 
$ pint milk. 



If fish is 

ordered, beef 

tea to be 

omitted. 



sugar at 

breakfast and 
at tea. 



1 pint of milk 

with rice or 

bread pudding 

alternately 

for dinner". 



sugar at 

breakfast and 

at tea. 



Half allow- 
ance of rice 

or bread 
pudding, and 
| pint milk. 



4 oz. meat 
when d 

' d iyt, 
boiled 1 day.) 



If fish is 
ordered, meat 
to be omitted. 



Children under ten years of age to be allowed two-thirds the quantity of each diet 
prescribed for adults. 

MARGATE METROPOLITAN ESTABLISHMENT FOR SCROFULOUS 
CHILDREN. 

Diet Table from 5 to 10 yean of 



Four or five oz. bread and 
butter, and |-ptnt milk in 



Three or four oz. roast or 
boiled meat, frith $-lb. 
potatoes, or potatoes and 
bread, or other vegetables, 
$-pint London porter, on 
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Four or five oz. bread and 



Thursday, and Friday. 

Eight or twelve oz. of either 
rice or currant padding, 
on Wednesday and Satur- 
day. Soup occasionally, in 
lieu of pudding. 



butter, and |-pint milk in 
water. 



APPENDIX B. 



475 



From 10 to 16. 



Breakfast. 


Dinner. 


Supper. 




Five or six oz. roast or 






boiled meat, with 1 lb. 






potatoes, or other vege- 






tables, or £-lb. potatoes, 






and 3 oz. bread, |-pint 






London porter, on Sunday, 




Six or seven oz. bread and 


Monday, Tuesday, Thurs- 


Six or seven oz. bread and 


butter, and f- pint of tea. 


day, and Friday. 

Sixteen oz. of either plum 
or currant pudding, on 
Wednesday and Saturday. 
Soup occasionally, in lieu 
of pudding. 


butter, and f-pint of tea. 



PARISIAN HOSPITALS. 

(Summary by a Correspondent of the Lancet, 1861, vol. i. p. 302.) 

Full Diet consists of White bread, 20 oz. 

Wine, mostly Bordeaux, \ to 1 pint 
Soup, f pint, twice daily. 
Bouilli, 9 oz. 

Cooked vegetables, 1 pint. 
Milk,i to 1 pint. 



daily. 



The above Dietaries are offered merely as samples. All of 
them, however, have been tested by experience ; and, apparently, 
found sufficient. 

The application, to these Dietaries, of many of the considera- 
tions mentioned in Chap XIII., is so obvious, as to spare us the 
necessity of any criticism of their details. But at the risk of 
repetition it may be useful to point out, that no direct comparison 
of them is available ; and that even an indirect one can only 
possess any significance, by taking cognizance of the following 
circumstances. 

1. The amount of labour of the person; the quantity and rich- 
ness of the food necessary to sustain health increasing, within 
certain limits, in proportion to the severity of the toil (p. 434.). 

2. Some of the above diets are supplemented from other sources ; 
in other words, only represent part of the food, the remainder 



476 APPENDIX B. 

being either habitually obtained by the persons rising them, a3 
in the case of soldiers and slaves ; or often prescribed as extras, 
as in the case of Hospital patients. 

3. The quantity and quality of a Dietary (p. 424 ) is often in- 
creased as a counterpoise to sources of ill-health, either un- 
avoidable or overlooked by the authorities of Institutions. The 
unhealthy situations of Millbank and the Hulks on the Thames, 
and the depression of spirits induced by the prospect of long im- 
prisonment, have thus been humanely compensated ("the latter in 
consonance with an excellent report by Sir James Graham) I 
richer diet. In like manner, the exhausting die Mdergone 

by our Hospital patients often require the application of the - 
rule, especially during convalescence. And if. as many think, 
the children reared in workh show mark- of in- 

sufficient Nutrition, it is clear, from a com] their Dietary 

with that of one of our m< 3l -: oJ Bospi 

(the Margate Infirmary > that it is not to an absolute (perhaps 
scarcely even to a relative) deficiency of food that we can attri- 
bute their deficient health and strength. The -ome 
of the least efficient, and most dem 
members of our community, might well I 

some of the characteristics of their immediate ancestry. But it 
may be suspected that neither insufficient food, nor an unhealthy 
descent, are altogether answerable for any such phj vene- 

ration ; and that it is to a want of such stimuli a- love and b 
not to say fresh air and e\ rather than to a mere defici 

of beef and pudding, that the feeble health of pauper children 
ften due. 









INDEX. 



Abdominal pressure, 217, 457. 
Acid, acetic, 343. 
benzoic, 23. 

butyric. See Butyric Acid, 
capric, 289. 
capronic, 299. 
caprylic, 289. 
citric, 23, 343. 
lactic. See Lactic Acid, 
malic, 318, 325. 
oxalic, 1G, 23, 343. 
phosphoric, 269, 306, 318. 
tartaric, 23. 
vaccinic, 289. 
Acids, as condiments, 343. 

action of, on pepsine, l*/3. 
Acorns, 317. 

Adipose tissue (also see Fat), 253, 202, 263, 
273,402,419. 
^Ether, 309, 451. 
Age, as influencing meat, 274. 
Albumen, 13, 14, 37, 53, 54, 254. 
Albuminous substances, 12, 20, 444. 

tissues, 12, 32, 34. 
Alcohol, its action on pepsine, 124. 
abuses in disease, 449. 
uses in disease, 449, 450. 
equivocal effects, 451. 
administration, 452. 
reaction, 305, 390, 391, 395. 
elimination, 387. 
influence on digestion, 395—397. 
ingestion, 396. 
hunger, 390. 
longevity, 391. 
secretions, 383, 384, 

386, 388, 395. 
the functions, 376, 

377. 
bodily waste, 378, 
380—386. 
temperature, 



abstinence from. 



exertion, 389 
See Teetotalism. 



Alcoholic drinks, 365—398. 

their relation to food, 305, 
370, 394, 396. 
classes, 366. 
physiological effects, 
374— 3S8. 
Ales, 306, 367, 374, 382, 392. 

bitter, 307. 
Algce, 330 

Alkalinity of intestinal juice, 149. 
pancreatic juice, 179. 
bile, 191. 
saliva, 78. 
Alkalis, action of, on pepsine, 123. 
Alkaloids of condiments, 342. 
Ammonia, 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, 385. 
Animal body, derivation of, 45. 

contrasted with plant, 45. 
heat, 9, 11, 12,27, 28,32. 
Anselmino, 7. 
Apothema of wine, 371. 
Apples, 324. 
Apricots, 324. 
Arab, as illustrating exalted nutrition, 

441. 
Arctic regions, nutrition in, 437. 
Asafcetitia, as a condiment, 341. 
Asparagin, 318. 
Asparagus, 328. 

Baking, 410. 

Barley, composition of, 303. 

Batrachia, 07. 

Beans, 31 G. 

Beaumont, Dr., 82, 118, 128, 129. 

Becquerel, 06. 

Beef, lean of, its composition, 254. 

of ox, its analysis, 279. 
Beers, 3G6, 367, 374, 382, 389. 
Beet-root, 323. 
Benedek, 365. 

Bernard, CI., 118, 129, 181, 197, 258. 
Bernays. Dr., 360, 385. 
Berzelius, 194,330. 
Bibra, von, 262. 



478 



IXDEX. 



Bickon, 306. 

Bidder, 30, 58, 66, 80, 118, 149, 150, 195, 

243. i; i 
Biestings. See Colostrum. 
Bile, its composition, 193, 194. 
quantity, 191. 
physical properties, 191. 
transit in the ducts, 192, 193. 
excretion, 195. 
reabsorption, 195. 
sources, 196. 

influence on digestion, 196, 197. 
nitrogen, 198. 
Birds, 48, 52, 249. 

flesh of, 277. 
Blondlot, 82, 118. 
Blood, 32. 

a seat of combustion, 21, 23. 

as food, '279. 

liquor. See Liquor Sanguinis. 

corpuscles, 27. 

waste of, in hybernation, 35. 

in starvation, 32, 35, 37. 
Boecker, 353, 358, 360, 3G1, 378. 
Boiling, 407—410. 
Bone, its rate of waste, 25. 

value as food, 255, 260, 281. 
Bordeaux wines, 371. 
Bouilli, 409. 
Bouillon, 409. 

Boussingault, 58, 259, 306, 318. 
Braconnot, 315. 
Brains, as food, 280. 
Brandy, 372, 382. 
Bread, its preparation, 309. 
choice, 310. 
value, 310, 311. 
Bruecke, 160. 
Brunn or Brumier, 84, 174, 178. 

glands of. See Duodenal 
Glands. 
Buckwheat, composition, 303. 
Buffalo-meat, 273. 
Burgundy wines, 371. 
Butter, 59, 265. 886, Ma 

its dietetic value, 290. 
Butyric acid, 16, 269, 

Cabbage, 328. 
Cachectia, 37. 
Caecum, 132, 201—206. 

attachments of, 201. 

size of, 201. 

mucous coat of, 203. 

muscular coat of, 202. 

apertures of, -03. 

use of, 206. 
Caffein, 349, 362. 



Caffetannic acid, 349. 

Carbonates, formed in body, 17, 23, 68. 

Carbonic acid, 16. 

exhaled by skin, 4. 
by lungs, 5. 

source of, 9. 
Cardiac aperture of stomach, 87. 
Carnivora, 56, 206, 234, 247, 249, 260. 
Carotin, 324. 

Carp, flesh of, its analysis, 279. 
Carpenter, Dr., 311. 
Carrageen, 330. 
Carrot, 323. 

Cartilage, 25, 253, 257, 260. 
Castration, as influencing meat, 274. 
Cat, 58. 
Celery, 328. 

Cellulose, 62, 302, 303, 305, 318, 328. 
Cere alia, 63,301—314. 

their composition, 303. 

range df climate, 304. 

value, how estimated. 

ash, analyses of, 3' 6. 

preparation, 307 -314. 

variations of constituents 
of, 305. 
Champagne, 373. 

ChevrmK 118, 238. 
Cheese, 290— I 

its composition, 290, I .. 
digestibi'.ir; 
value, 294. ! 
varieties, I 

changes by keeping. S 
Chestnuts, 317. 

Chicken, flesh of. its analysis. _~ 
Childhood, diet in. 426. 
Chlorides, of cgesta. 7, 17, 31. 237 (all 
Salt). 
of the bile, 184. 
blood, 269. 
gastric juice, 119, 
milk, 
muse'. 

rS, 79. 
pancreatic juice, 17J. 
Chlorophyll, 194, 
Chocolate. 40, 361—364. 
Choice of food. 5,v Diet. 
Cholera, 36. 
Cholestearine, 194. 
Cholicacid, 194. 198. 
Chondrin. 5?. 
Ghaaaaf, 30. 
Cinnamon, 341. 
Climate. Arctic. I i 

Tropica).::. N 
Cobbett, 319. 



INDEX. 



479 



Cocoa, its composition, 362. 

mechanical ingredients, 361. 
preparations, 363. 
its nutritive properties, 363, 364. 
Cod-liver oil, 234, 332. 
Coffee, historic influence of, 345. 
its composition, 346, 349. 
contrast with tea, 350, 354. 
decoction, 350. 
roasting, 349. 

physiological effects, 351—360. 
effects influenced by habits, 

356. 
effects influenced by idiosyncrasy, 

356. 
effects influenced by occupation, 
352. 
experiments on its action, 353, 360, 
365. 
Collagen, 55. 
Collagenic tissues, 255, 257, 259, 2G0, 273, 

278. 
Colon, its structure, 208. 

appendices epiplotcce, 209. 
peristalsis, 211, 212. 
mucous membrane, 212. 
ascending, 201, 207. 
descending, 201,207. 
sigmoid flexure of, 199, 201, 208. 
transverse, 201, 207. 
Colostrum, 282, 283. 
Combustion of the tissues, 9, 16. 

bodily, its sites, 23. 24. 
of hydrogen, 9, 359, 384. 
of protein, 12, 16,33, 270. 
of fat, 10, 11,28,32, 33,419. 
Condiments, 331—343. 

acrid or heating, 337. 
alliaceous, 340. 
complementary, 343. 
definition of, 331. 
acid, 343. 
relations of, to food, 332. 

medicine, 332, 

339. 
secretion, 338. 
Cookery, 394, 399—415. 

its general value, 399, 404. 
effects on meat, 401, 402. 
import, 402. 
the flavours it developes, 403, 404. 
its processes, 405 — 415. 
economy, 400, 404, 415. 
Cooling, process of, in hot climates, 439. 
Corvisart, Dr., 182. 
Cream, 288. 

cheese, 291. 
Curacoa, 373. 



Date, 329. 

Dauglish, Dr., 309. 

Decay, in old age, 2, 429. 

Deer, flesh of, 262, 268. 

Defalcation, 216, 217, 218, 457. 

Degluttion, 85—87. 

Delajond, 160. 

De Morgan, 25. 

Depurative functions, relation of diet to, 

426, 432, 447. 
Dextrine, 62, 324, 329, 330. 
Diet, 416-453. 

how far calculable, 417—420. 
as influenced by chemistry, 421. 
results of insufficient, 421—423. 
definition of a good, 423. 
compensates injuries, 424. 
value of physiology to, 425. 
as influenced by age, 426—431. 

habits of life, 433— 

435. 
disease, 441. 
sex, 431— 433. 
race, 440, 441. 
climate, 435—441. 
Dietaries (Appendix B.), 464. 
of soldiers, 461. 
sailors, 465. 
emigrants, 467. 
prisoners, 471. 
paupers, 468. 
hospital patients, 474. 
children, 468—470, 463—465. 
Digestion, etymology of, 70. 
definition of, 70. 
summary of, 71. 
in the stomach, 130. 

large intestine, 230. 
small intestine, 198. 
caecum, 230. 
wear and tear of, 245, 430. * 
disease of the organs of, as af- 
fecting diet, 442. 
Disease, influence of, on meat, 274. 
Dog, 58, 79, 141, 258, 260, 458, 460, 461. 
Drink, distinction from food, 40. 
Dulong, 33, 419. 
Dunglison, 118, 122. 
Duodenal glands, 84, 175—178. 

function of, 177. 
structure of, 176. 
Duodenum, 134, 135. 
Duroy, 387. 
Dysenteric purging, 38. 

Egesta, their channels, 3. 

physical form, 4. 
constituents, 4—8, 



480 



IXDEX. 



Egesta, their sources, 8 — 24. 
Eggs, 52, 281. 

their value as food, 258, 281. 
composition, 281. 
Einhof, 318. 

Elimination of alcohol, 3S7, 388, 452. 
fever, 450, 461. 
excretory matters, 38G, 447. 
Also see Egesta. 
Enderlin, 118. 
Enemata, 449. 
Erdmann, 306. 
Eructation, 455, 456. 
Evaporation, 359, 383, 439. 
Exertion, influence of, on diet, 433—435. 

bodily, its relation to alcohol. 3^9. 

diet, 434. 
mental, alcohol, 389, 

diet, 435. 

Fasces, 5, 6, 232-237. 

their colour, 232. 
odour, 232. 

bile, 194, 232, 233, 236. 
sources, 232. 
composition, chemical, 236. 

mechanical, '234. 
Fat, 8, 10, 11,27,32,33, 51 

its relation to the blood, 11, 61. 
proportion in the body, 61. 
proportion in meat, SG2. 
diverse sources, 263. 

composition, '263, 264. 
digestibility, 264, 2G"\ 
value as food, 264 — 266. 
results of its excess, 267. 
Fattening of animals, 63, 64, 334. 441. 

uses of water in, 66. 
Fatty acids, 267, 383, 384. 
Fatty tissues, 27. 32. 

their uses in the body, 60. 
Fever, 6, 28, 29, 37. 

diet in, how regulated, 448 458 . 
tvphoid, 37, 449. 
tvpfci .449. 
Fibrine, 53, 54. 
Figs, 329. 
Fish, flesh of, 878. 
Fistuhe, gastric. 82. 

intestinal, 141, 231. 
Flesh. See Meat. 
Foetus, intestinal contents in, 233. 
Follicles, definition of, 166. 

agminate, site of, 166. 

structure of, 169—172. 
function of, 173. 
solitary. 166. 173,212. 
Food, its purposes. 1, 21. 



Food, definition of, 39. 
constituents of, 52. 
organic in its nature, 43. 
quantity of, 419— 421. 
relation to bodily waste, 43. 
variety essential, 51, 327, 418. 
of plants and animals contrasted, 45. 
ideal of any animal, 247. 
animal, 246—295. 

contrasted with vegetal W, 
250—252. 
natural to Man, 247—249. 
influence of, 2=>0. 
vegetable, it* characters, 296. 
essential, _ J 
harmless in superfluity, 

299. 
variations of, 300. 
varieties of, 301—330. 
Ford, 364. 
Frci, 171. 

Frcrichs, 58.1 18,149,193^59, 259,295. ! 
Fit sen ,us. 306. 
Fruits, 324 — 3^7. 

their composition. 324. 
nutritive value, 325. 
Funguses, 329, 330. 

Gall-bladder, 190-193. 

Game-fowl, flesh of. 178. 

Garlic, 341,343. 

Gases of a'iraentary canal, 23*— 212. 

Gastric juice, 117—131. 

chemical properties of. 1 7— 

121. 
physical properties of, 117. 
acids of, 11*— 120. 
action of, 121. 
salts of, 119. 
organic principle of. 
Pepsine. 
Gelatin, 16, 23, 37, 50, 55, 255. 
its varieties 
its sources, 255. 
value to nutrition, 256 — 261. 

cookery, 2"" • . . I I 
See Butter. 
Gin. 373. 3^2. 
Glands as food 
Gluten, 303, 305, 3 - 
Glycin, 16, 194. 
Glycogen. 1; - 
Gooldctu £>>-.. 36 \ G>\ - 
Gravy. 406. 
Green herbs, 32*— 

their compositier 
nutritive 1 1 
Greic, 166 



INDEX. 



481 



Growth of young animal, 2, 426. 

Gruby, 160. 

Gum, 62, 314, 315, 324, 326, 327. 

Hare, flesh of, 262. 
Hayes, Dr. J., 436. 
Heart, muscle of, as food, 272. 
Heat, animal. See Animal Heat. 
Heat of combustion of carbon and hydrogen 
contrasted, 33. 
fat and sugar con- 
trasted, 419. 
Hepatic vein, 188. 

composition of its blood, 198. 
Herbivora, 55, 56, 67, 206, 247, 249. 
Hippuric acid, 16. 
Hcematin, indigestibility of, 280. 
Horse, 58, 249. 
Horse-radish, 341, 342. 
Horsfurd, 303, 319. 
Hunger, 26, 36. 
Hunger, in starvation, 29. 
Husk, 302, 303, 305, 307, 308, 361. 
Hybernation, 26, 27, 35. 

its effect on various tissues,27. 
excrements during, 233. 
Hydrates of carbon, 52, 418, 419, 440. 
Hydrocarbons, 52. 

of the fatty tissues, 10. 
quantity in body, 10. 
combustion of, 11, 35. 
in the blood, 11. 
nervous tissues, 11. 

Iceland-moss, 330. 
Ileo-ccecal valve, 204—206. 

its structure, 204. 

mechanism, 205. 

function, 20G. 
Ileum, 136. 

Inanition. See Starvation. 
Ingesta, variations of, 26, 28. 
not all food, 42. 

preponderance of, during growth, 
2, 426. 
Inosinic acid, 16, 271. 
Inosit, 15, 16, 62, 264, 271. 
Insalivation, 72. 
Intermediate circulation, 244. 
Intestine, large, 191—245. 

its contents, 229. 

sojourn of food in, 231. 

digestion in, 229. 

its divisions, 201. 

situation, 199. 

size, 200. 

movements, 209—212. 

diet in ulceration of, 443. 



Intestine small, 132—198. 

size of, 133. 
situation, 133. 
movements of, 138—144. 
muscular coat of, 138. 
mucous coat, 144 — 178. 
Intestinal arteries, 220—223. 
capillaries, 226. 
gases, 237—243. 

analyses, 238. 
nature, 238—242. 
sources of, 238—242. 
expulsion of, 243. 
eliminative, 243. 
veins, 223— 225. (Also see Portal 

Vein.) 
mucus, 233. 
nerves, 227—229. 

distribution of, 227. 
communications of,'228. 
functions of, 228, 229. 
Intestinal juice, 147—150. 
Inulin, 324. 
lnvcrtebrata, 48. 

Jejunum, 136. 

Johnstone, 361. 

Jones, Dr. Beyice, 120, 354, 385. 

J urine, 238. 

Kane, Dr., 266. 
Kidneys, as food, 281. 
Kiernan, 184. 
Koechlin, 306. 
Koelliker, 160, 172, 190. 
Koerte, 318. 
Kohlrausch, 220. 
Kreatine, 16, 17, 270. 
Kreatinine, 16, 17,270. 
Krocker, 303, 318. 

Lactation, 282, 286, 432. 

Lactic acid, 15, 16, 270, 292, 299. 

Lallemand (L?idge)-) , 387. 

Lampadius, 318, 362 

Lassat'gne, 118. 

Leeks, 341,342. 

Legumes, 314— 317. 

composition of, 314. 

cooking of, 316. 

dietetic value of, 315. 
Legumin, 349 

Lehmann, 58, 66, 118, 119, 125, 149, 197, 268, 
269, 277, 283, 353, 361. 
Lemon-juice, 343. 
Lentils, 316. 
Letellier, 306. 
Lettuce, 328, 329. 



I I 



482 



INDEX. 



Levator anl, 215, 216, 217. 
Liebig, 63, 64, 378. 

Life, as involving metamorphosis, 2, 46, 65, 
365, 380. 
animal and vegetable, its sum, 43. 
Ligament, 253, 260. 
L'Herilier, 286. 
Liqueurs, 367, 372, 373. 
Liquor Sanguinis, 24. 

its ash, contrasted with 
that of the corpuscles, 
and of muscle, 269. 
Liver, 27, 32, 64, 182—198. 

its structure, 184—190. 
function, 190—198. 
value as food, 281. ; 
Livingstone, Dr., 337. 
Ludwig,8\, 141. 

Madeira wine, 372, 373. 

Magendie, 238, 242. 

Maize, its composition, 303, 304, 306. 

preparation, 308. 
Mangold, 323. 
Maraschino, 373. 
Marchand, 'i38. 

Marmot, during hybernation, 26, 35. 
Mastication, 71. 
Matteucci, 164. 
Meat, etymology, 252. 

its mechanical ingredients, 2"3. 
composition, 254 — 271. 
varieties, 271—279. 
ash of, 268. 
Melon, 329. 

Metamorphoses of digestion, 51. 
Mialhc, 125. 
Michaelis, 318. 
Milk, 52, 282, 426. 
case in of, 56. 
analysis of, in ass, 283. 
cow, 283. 
dog, 283. 
goat, 283. 
mare, 283. 
sheep, 283. 
man, 2S3. 
its quantity, 284. 

variations, 282—287. 
physical arrangement, 287. 
effect of lactation on, 286. 
alimentary products of, 288. 
hydrocarbons of, 59. 
hydrates of carbon of, 62. 
Millet, 303. 
Mitscherlick, 291. 
Mixture of food instinctive, 51, 
MoleschoU, 306. 



Mosses, 330. 
Mouse, 58. 
Mueller, 294. 
Muscle, 14, 15, 25, 55. 

its waste in starvation, 32, 34. 
hybernation, 27. 
Muscular juice, 24. 
tissues, 22. 

exertion, as influencing meat, 276. 
substance, 12, 13, 19, 258. 

as food, 252—279. 
varieties of, 271—279. 
Mustard, 329. 

Nervous tissues, nutrition of, 26. 
Neubauer, 13, 386. 

Nitrogen, its proportion in urea, 6. 12. 
cheese, 294. 
Noyau, 373. 
Nutrition, ideal of, 3. 
site of, 1 B. 
chemistry < 
aided by secretions 

apart from fooda 244. 
in the child, 

female, 431. 
Nutritional fluids. M. 
Nuts, 317. 

mposition of, 303. 
(Esopfa 

Oils of condiments, 342. 
Old age, diet In, 429. 
Onions, 341, 842. 
Oxid .• 
Oxygen, 10, IS, 27, 31,41. 

Pancreas, 178—182. 

its structur 

secretion, 179. 
function, 1^0. 
value as food. 281. 
action on starch, 
fat, 181. 

protein-compounds, 
182. 
Papilla; of the stomach, 129, 130. 

intestine. See Villi. 
Parsnip. 323. 
Pa yen, 118. 
Peaches. 321. 
Pears. 324. 
Tease, 316, 317. 
Pectin, 324, 326, 330. 
Pern mi can. ! 
Pepper, 337. 341. 342. 
Pepsine. 120, 121. 125. 
Peptone, 19,20, 125, 126, 131. 



INDEX. 



483 



Peptone, formed by gastric juice only, 131. 
Peristalsis, of oesophagus, 87- 

small intestine, 138—143. 
P err in {Maurice), 387. 
Peyer, 166. 

Pharynx, in deglutition, 86. 
Phosphates, of the egesta, 7, 8, 17, 30, 236. 
milk, 69, 285. 
saliva, 78. 
gastric juice, 119. 
blood, 269. 
muscle, 269. 
bile, 194. 

food, 269, 307, 321, 427. 
Pigeon, flesh of, its analysis, 279. 
Plums, 324. 
Pork, its analysis, 279. 
Port wine, 372, 373. 
Portal blood, its circulation, 226. 

decomposition in the liver, 
197. 
Portal vein, 186, 188, 224, 225. 

rate of its current, 226. 
its anastomoses, 225. 
its distribution in the liver, 186. 
Pot aufeu, as a variety of boiling, 408. 
Potato, its anatomy, 317. 

composition, 318. 
political influence, 319. 
value as food, 321—323, 421. 
Pregnancy, as influencing diet, 432. 

nutrition, 431, 
433. 
Protein, 12, 13, 16, 49, 53, 301, 303, 308, 311, 
314, 323, 324, 418. 
nature of, 53, 54. 
compounds, 53. 
composition of, 12, 16, 55. 
digestibility of, 58, 418, 453. 
Prout, Dr., 118, 127. 
Prunes, 329. 
Ptyalin, 80. 

Puchero, as a model stew, 413. 
Pulse. See Legumes. 
Putrefaction of food, 274. 

as affecting cookery, 401, 414. 
health, 414, 428. 

Quadrumana, 249. 

Rabbit, 210. 
Raisins, 329. 
Rape, 323. 
Rectum, 212—220. 

its course, 213. 

muscular coat, 214. 

serous coat, 214. 
Rectum, its sphincter muscles, 215. 



Rectum, its mucous membrane, 219. 
mucous folds, 219. 
suspensory muscle, 220. 
Rennet, 291, 292. 
Repletion, diseases of, 445, 446. 

diet in, 445, 447. 
Reptiles, 48. 

Rice, its composition, 303, 306. 
range of climate, 304. 
nutritive value, 304, 305, 314, 421. 
Ridges, of gastric mucous membrane, 105, 

130. 
Rigor mortis, as affecting cookery, 414. 
Roasting, 405. 

Roe-deer, flesh of, its analysis, 279. 
Rugce of the stomach, 105. 
Rum, 373, 382. 

Rye, its composition, 303, 306. 
nutritive value, 307. 

Saalmueller, 329. 
Saliva, 78, 79. 

its composition, 79. 
reaction, 79. 
quantity, 80. 
secretion, 81, 82. 
action, 83 — 85. 
fermentation, 80. 
Salivary glands, 72. 

structure of, 73—77. 
secretions of, 77, 78. 
Salmon, 278,414,415, 426. 
Salt, as a condiment, 333 — 337, 
action of, 333. 

instinctive craving for, 333. 
deficiency of, its results, 333. 
excess of, its results, 335. 
Salts of egesta, 6, 17, 31. 
the sweat, 7, 386. 
urine, 7. 
food, 68, 418. 
Sarcosin, 16. 
Scklossberger, 278. 

Schmidt, 30, 58, 66, 80, 118, 119, 126, 149, 
150, 195,198,243, 269. 
Schneider mann, 330. 
Schroeder, 118. 
Schwarzenberg, 141. 
Scurvy, 38, 69. 
Scurvy grass, 332. 
Sedentary, diet for the, 433, 434. 
Serum, 24. 

Sherry wine, 372, 373. 
Siemens, 318. 
Simon, J. F., 282, 283. 
Skin, 3, 5, 7,11, 25, 64. 
Smith, Dr. E., 360, 361, 381, 382. 
Smith, F G., 118. 



II 2 



484 



IXDEX. 



Soup, 407, 409, 411,412. 
Spinach, 328, 329. 
Spittle. See Saliva. 

St. Mar tin, Alexis, case of. See Beaumont, Br. 
Starch, 62, 64, 83, 85, 299, 302, 303, 309, 311, 
314-318, 324. 
Starvation, 28, 53. 

varieties of, 29, 6. 
date of death in, 30. 
loss of substance in, 30. 
egesta during, 30. 
influence of, on the several 
tissues, 32. 

water on, 65. 
Stewing, 410—413. 
Stomach, 88—131. 

attachments of, 90. 
areolar tissue of, 110. 
cardiac aperture of, 87, 98. 
digestive changes in, 117. 
lenticular glands of, 10'J. 
lymphatics of, 116. 
matrix of, 109. 
movements of, 98—103. 
mucous coat of, 104—109. 
muscular coat of, 91- 
pyloric valve of. 90, 103. 
diet in disease of, 443. 
nerves of, 115. 
serous coat of, 94. 
tubes of, 105—109. 
vessels of, 111—115. 
shape of, 88. 
size of, 90. 
situation of, 91. 

movements of food in, 100—103. 
cell-growths of, 107—109. 
secretion of. Sec Gastric Juice, 
protective mucus of, 119. 
Succulent roots, 323 — 327. 
Sugar, 16, 21, 37, 62, 63, G4, 2>3, 323. 320, 
328, 360. 373, 37-1, 419, 
conversion of starch in: 
influence of, in alcoholic liquids, 374. 
Sulphates, 7, 30. 68. 
Sulphocyanide of potassium, 79, 80. 
Sulphocyanogen, 342. 
Sulphuretted hydrogen, 6^. 
Sweat, constituents ot\ 7. 
Sympathetic nerves, 116, 227. 
Syntonin, 13, 20, 254. 

Taurin, 194, 195. 

Tauro-cholie acid, 194. 

Tea. its historic influence. 34~>. 

composition, 347. 

contrasted with 334. 

infusion, 



Tea, its physiological effects, 352—360. 
nutritive value, 344, 350, 351. 
experiments on its action, 360, 364, 

365. 
kinds of, 346. 

effect of, influenced by idiosyncrasy, 
357. 
habits., 3-56. 
occupation, 
352. 
Tee-totalism, 322, 3S3, 3S9, 391—398. 
Teeth, 71, 72. 
Tench, peristalsis in, 143. 
Tendon, 255, 257, 260. 
Thein, 347, 362. 
Theobromine, 362. 
Thirst, death by, 28, 36, 65. 
Thomson. Ii.D., 118. 
Tiedemann. 118. 
To mo 

Tongue, 72, 272, I 
Trip 

Trout, flesh of, its ana 
Tubes, of stomach, 105— 
small int' 
large intestine, - 
Turbo: 
Turn . 332. 

Tamil 

ration, S8. 

Unstriped muscle, as fo<> 

J 

it> relation to the urine, 6. 
food 

its quantity, 6. 
variations, 6. 
sources, 12, 13, 14. 
allied substances, 4, 15, 16, 386. 
Uric acid, 16. 

of eg I 
Urine, its import, 65. 

FmkM -.164,437. 

J'tjlvuLr continents 

Van ill.; 

Veal, its anal] nfl -" 

:arianism," unnan. 

inaccuracy 
. 323*. 
Vermiform appendix, 201, 206. - 

Villi, 152-165. 
Shaj 






INDEX. 



485 



Villi 9 structure of, 154. 
lacteal s of, 157. 
blood-vessels of, 156. 
muscular coat of, 159. 
movements of, 159, 160. 
changes of, during digestion, 163. 
absorption of fat by, 163. 
aided by bile, 196. 
Vinegar, 343, 367. 
Vogel, 7, 13, 318, 386. 
Vomiting, 455—463. 

conditions of, 453. 
agents of, 457. 
phenomena of, 458. 
causes of, 459. 
how far " reflex," 460. 
nature of, 460, 461. 
varieties of, 461 — 463. 

Waste, physical, 1, 2. 

relation to food, 39. 



Water, of the egesta, 5. 

sources of, 9. 

of bodily combustion, 9, 17, 31, 359, 
384. 

of the food, 52, 64. 

its uses in the organism, 65, 66. 
Way, 318. 
Weber, 143. 
Wehsarg, 233. 
Wild animals, flesh of, 277. 
Will, 306. 
Wines, 366—382, 389. 

composition of, 368—373. 

effervescing, 373. 

red, 369, 371, 379. 

white, 369, 379. 

Zander, 149. 



THE END. 



pmiKTBD il IPOTT18WOOD1 — 

\UE 






By the same Author. 



THE DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 

8vo. cloth, 10s. 6d. 



" Certainly no better guarantee could 
possibly be given for the faithful discharge 
of the duties implied in writing- such a 
treatise than the previous career of Dr. 
Brinton. His book is one everywhere in- 
spired by a spirit of truth. It hardly aims 
at being brilliant or amusing, but it is 
everywhere readable ; and without tedious- 
ness, it is earnest, solid, and instructive. 
Among the numerous works of late years 
issued upon gastric pathology, it yields to 
none in importance; and we feel* assured 
that it will be found to supply a want even 
in this crowded region of medical litera- 
ture.— To any one who has arrived, by dint 
of much reading (or much physicking), at 
conclusions like these, we recommend Dr. 
Brinton's book ; and especially its final 
Chapter on Dyspepsia, as an example how 
much the spirit of truth and soberness can 
do for a subject which has been tortured 
into such an immense variety of forms. — It 
is unnecessary to enlarge here upon the 
exhaustive and admirable manner in which 
Dr. Brinton has treated of the Chronic 
lUcer, and on Cancer of the Stomach.— 
The same conscientious care for truth has 
guided the author through every part of 
his researches, as is apparent in the ground 
we have now gone over; and indeed not 
one sentence or phrase from beginning to 
end of this work will bear the construction 
that it was written at random, or without 
the most serious reflection. "—British and 
Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. 

"Dr. Brinton's Lectures cannot fail to 
add to the high reputation already attained 
by the author— In our notice of his mo- 
nograph of Ulcer of the Stomach, we gave 
as a reason for the length to which our 
remarks had run, that it lessened by one 
affection 'the wide field for speculation, 
conjecture, and empiricism, > said by Dr. 
Abercrombie to be presented by diseases 
of the stomach ; and we have now to 
tender him our thanks for having per- 
formed the same good office for the 
others." — Dublin Quarterly Journal of 
Medical Science. 

" In no separate work published in re- 
cent years have we met with so clear and 
exact a statement of the various maladies 
to which the stomach is liable, of their 
pathological peculiarities, and the con- 
ditions which determine the treatment in 



the several cases.— The rare judgment and 
discrimination which mark the author's 
disquisitions into the value of symptoms 
and pathological phenomena, make the 
treatise a reliable one for the practitioner, 
and constitute it, in fact, the reference 
work on the subject." — Medical Circular. 

" As one of our first writers upon the 
structure, functions, and diseases of the 
alimentary canal, the author of this trea- 
tise has for some time established his repu- 
tation. — We have been much pleased with 
the plain and straightforward remarks on 
dyspepsia. On the subject of indigestion 
there is such scope for professional as well 
as other quackery, that it is peculiarly 
gratifying to alight upon its discussion 
conducted with as complete an absence 
of such foible, as with the presence of 
scientific rigour. We recommend this 
work as an honourable addition to the 
really scientific literature of the day." 

Lancet. 

" These Lectures are intended to give a 
brief but complete account of what is at 
present known concerning: the Diseases of 
the Stomach. To the investigation of 
these maladies Dr. Brinton has devoted a 
large amount of time and attention. The 
whole work will fully repay a careful 
study ; and we therefore heartily com- 
mend it to our readers." 

Medical Times and Gazette. 

" Dr. Brinton comes forward with highly 
favourable antecedents as an observer of, 
and writer on, Diseases of the Stomach, 
and the work now before us will increase 
his well earned reputation. He has made 
himself a claim to be looked to as an 
authority in the subject on which he pro- 
fesses to instruct.— Dr. Brinton is an 
accomplished pathologist in stomach dis- 
eases ; but, what is of equal, or rather of 
greater importance, he is manifestly a 
sound rational therapeutist. What reme- 
dies he employs, he employs with judg- 
ment, and with a full sense of the difficul- 
ties which obstruct his efforts ; and, what 
is of the highest importance, there runs 
through his therapeutic doctrines an indi- 
cation to base treatment, as strictly as 
possible, on Physiology. This character- 
istic of his practice constitutes an addi- 
tional claim on his part to our confidence." 
Association Journal. 



■ 




rIi!iH,. : 



